Green Lake mayor chooses to fight cancer with Indigenous medicine
Science is taking the backseat for traditional knowledge in a northern Saskatchewan man’s fight against cancer.
Ric Richardson, the mayor of the northern village of Green Lake, was given a terminal cancer diagnosis in February. Instead of following modern medicine’s recommendation of chemotherapy and radiation treatment therapy, he is taking matters into his own hands and going a more traditional route.
He’s been following a regime of traditional medicines in the form of a sacred tea to combat the disease – the way his Métis ancestors healed.
“My wife and I have been working with traditional medicines for many years – now it’s just my turn,” Richardson said. “We’ve shared a lot of medicines [at] different times with different people for a variety of things, including cancer.”