Located next to the Wesley Elders Lodge, a new healing space is beginning to take shape—Stoney Health Services is building a place where Indigenous traditional healing will be practiced.

Jeanette Wildman, Stoney Health Services cultural liaison, says that it was her idea to have this space created in her community.

Wildman’s plan came to her after seeing the negative impacts the opioid epidemic was having on Indigenous peoples. By opening this healing space, she says they hope to combat those impacts and to help save lives.

Two tipis’ will be set up along with a fire pit, and a sweat lodge for both Indigenous peoples. The healing space project will cost around $90,000 to build, with those funds mostly covered by the Canadian Root's Exchange CREations Community Grant, along with an additional $10,000 given by Stoney Health Services.

The project is slated to be completed sometime in July with the grand opening set for August, when the name for the healing space will be selected. Wildman says that the space is a place for both healing and prayer, calling it “a place for people to rekindle their spirituality.”

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