Student group seeks city partnership for urban sweat lodge

A group seeking a space for people to practise their culture will get a meeting with Prince Albert’s mayor to discuss their plans moving forward.

Students from the First Nations University of Canada appeared at city council on April 23 seeking land for a proposed urban sweat lodge. Jessica Wozniak, a member of the student group, said a sweat lodge would help live up to the city’s multicultural action plan.

“We feel like it’s part of reconciliation, to live up to the promise of recognizing Indigenous spirituality,” Wozniak said. “We have almost 50 churches, a mosque [and] different organizations catering to different spiritualties, but there are no Indigenous sweat lodges in Prince Albert.”

Their motives for bringing such a facility to the Gateway to the North were mixed, however the group noted the positive mental health benefits of having a sweat lodge in the city.

“Interviews with various community organizations, community members and Elders have one common observation: Mental health services in Prince Albert do not meet the cultural needs of Indigenous clients,” Wozniak said in council.

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The students collected over 400 signatures in two days on a petition presented to the city clerk according to Wozniak.

She said the sweat lodge could be an economic benefit to the city in the sense that it could help keep people out of the mental health unit at the Victoria Hospital. It could also reduce taxpayer dollars spent on policing by potentially reducing the number of violent incidents in the city while reducing youth involvement in gangs and the incarceration rates of Indigenous people.

“Prince Albert is a prison town and there’s a large number of offenders that are released in the community,” Wozniak said. “While they’re incarcerated they get a plethora of culturally relevant programming and services, including regular sweat lodges.”

She said an urban sweat lodge could help reduce the rates of Indigenous recidivism by continuing to provide reformed offenders access to sweat lodges.

Wozniak said an urban sweat lodge could help Indigenous people connect with their culture as it isn’t always easy for them to find transportation to access lodges in surrounding communities.

The student group asked the city about the possibility of partnership and sponsorship in the form of land donation or money to build the structure. They’d also like to see funding for ceremonies, maintenance and miscellaneous costs for the project handled by the city.

In response, Greg Dionne proposed to meet with the student group to ask questions he has about the project.

“I’d like to meet with you and bring a report back to council,” Dionne said, adding he needed information about the land size and the site plan from the students. “At that same time we can talk about locations, and we can bring a report back to council.”

Councillors Terra Lennox-Zepp and Dennis Ogrodnick both agreed the project was an important one to pursue.

Ogrodnick also noted the significance of Prince Albert’s name, which translates to “The Gathering Place” in Cree, as Indigenous people have historically gathered on the banks of the Saskatchewan River.

“I think all we’re doing is bringing back what was here, and should be here, so you have my full support on such a venture,” Ogrodnick said. “It’s time that we give equal representation to our Indigenous peoples.”

–With files from Tyler Marr

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas