In a wooded area beside some farmland west of Waterloo, Ont., is Crow Shield Lodge.
It’s an Indigenous land-based education and healing space just outside New Hamburg. There’s a white tent — the teaching lodge — that can seat about 20 people. There’s a walled tent with a fire pit for gatherings. There’s a sweat lodge.
On this particular day, as snow flurries whipped around just on the other side of the trees, Clarence Cachagee led three other people in a smudging. He burned tobacco and sage in a small cast iron pan.
As a child growing up in Chapleau Cree First Nation in northern
This story was originally published on CBC News. To read the rest of this news worthy story, please visit https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/crow-shield-lodge-healing-education-waterloo-region-1.6260860?cmp=rss.