Indigenous healing garden planted at Alberta’s Children Hospital

A new community and Indigenous-led project has been launched at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.

An Indigenous healing garden was planted Thursday afternoon, funded by the Alberta Children’s Hospital foundation.

The healing garden at Alberta Children’s Hospital has officially been opened to provide a place of refuge for patients, families, staff and physicians. Thank you to Elder Marilyn Shingoose, AHS Indigenous Liaison Georgina Bird, FoodScape Calgary and @ACHFKids. pic.twitter.com/uRDyoTTbgd

— AHS_CalgaryZone (@AHS_YYCZone) July 28, 2022

The garden is a project by Foodscape Calgary which is a local social enterprise that offers edible and sustainable landscape design, according to a release.

The planting ceremony began with a land acknowledgment and an introduction from the founder of Foodscape, Heather Morigeau.

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This initiation was alongside comments from the Aboriginal Hospital Liaison, Georgina Bird, who talked about the importance of the garden, and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Executive Director Natasha Tiemstra who offered thanks for the initiative.

Georgine Bird has been the Aboriginal Hospital Liaison at Alberta Health Services for the last 12 years.

“Today is actually a great day for all of us because we’re opening our garden here at Alberta’s Children’s Hospital and it’s been in progress for the last few years,” said Bird.

“I was excited from the very beginning but today I’m even more excited because I was just in Edmonton where the Pope was at.”

“And I was at the St. Anne’s site yesterday and there was so much hope that was actually put there.”

Bird says that are still a lot of mixed feelings among Indigenous people but that the healing garden is significant.

“The healing garden is very significant because it’s the four colours of mother earth which are also the four colours of mankind and in time through our teachings, we know that these colours would come together.”

“We knew that one day we would actually be here learning from each other and doing things together,” she said.

She says that there are a lot of challenges that Indigenous people have faced historically and this is indicated by the barrier Indigenous people face including the higher number of casualties in the health and judicial system.

“And you know it has a lot to do with multiple generations of trauma that we’ve actually gone through,” she adds. 

Bird shared that as a child her mother was forcibly taken from her family and passed away because she had tuberculosis. She says that back in 1957 this meant that you would be arrested if you refused to go in for treatment.

She added that she didn’t realize until later on in life how that trauma affected her in the long run.

The Indigenous-led garden included a smudge ceremony led by the elder Marilyn Shingoose, food, artwork, and a peaceful place to visit at the hospital.

Indigenous healing garden is displayed at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. (Photos: Latoya Powel)