Through meadows and stands of trees, along the water’s edge and forested avenues, Ben leads the way through 200 acres of a pristine natural oasis. He has taken his own personal healing journey while working hand in hand with Mother Nature to craft a living canvas with every stroke carefully placed. There are no bricks and mortar to be found in this place – this is not the intent.
Each step Ben has taken on the land has been with the journey’s end always clear in his mind – to create the Whispering Wilderness Healing Retreat, a refuge for those that want to reconnect with the natural world and, in doing so, reconnect with themselves.
“When you are passionate about what you do, when you really love what you do it’s just like you’re not even working. I feel it in my heart building this project. I think it is going to play a major role in the future where people can come and heal, to feel better about themselves, to feel more calm.”
As a loon calls out across the landscape, Ben speaks of how he grew up on this land, of the work he has done and what there is still left undone. He gives little thought to his age but instead speaks of the love of his family and the pride they have in him for what he has created – this is the strength he needs to carry on and he feels fortunate to have their support.
“I don’t want to die before I’m dead. I believe the most powerful force on this planet is the human soul on fire,” he says of the passion that drives him every day to continue his work. The fuel that feeds that fire is nature itself, he says, describing it as “soulfully enchanting." When told he is a man of beautiful words, he simply responds, “Maybe it’s because I read a lot of dictionaries.”
Ben had little formal schooling growing up but has instead educated himself through the years. “It is all self-taught what I know. My little house is like a library. I work hard in the summer and in the winter months I study all kinds of topics - I’m going to school in my own house,” he says, surrounded by stacks of books and magazines.
Traditional healing
His grandfather and father were medicine men and his mother was also a traditional healer. They looked to the natural world for its healing powers, making medicine from herbs they gathered from the land. As a young boy, he admits he paid too little attention as his grandfather told him of the healing powers of nature and now, many years later, he regrets this.
“I’m sorry about a lot of things now that I’m an old man but now I’m trying to do my best to live a different life, a more responsible life. I talk with my family a lot about what I know. It’s my responsibility that I pass that knowledge to them.”
It is impossible not to be moved by the landscape Ben has nurtured. This is a place of tranquility, a place to meditate, a place to find peace in a world that all too often offers up little in the way of quietness. It is also his legacy.
“Forest therapy trails, healing gardens, exercising in nature and immersing in nature’s serene places have become valid treatment options for people to cope with and recover from stress and illness,” he says. “What I’ve built here is a huge project. It will be around for many, many years to come into the future and my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will continue to remember me. They will say, ‘Hey, great-grandpa built this retreat by himself,’ - that’s quite a legacy to leave behind for my family.”
A shared vision
Teneil Whiskeyjack shares her grandfather’s vision for the land he has made ready, and it is now in her hands to take it to the next level. She is equally passionate about opening the retreat and envisions bringing people from diverse backgrounds to the land to help ignite their stories and their own healing journeys and bring them back to themselves.
“We can do so much here. He was always ahead of his time,” she says of her grandfather. “His tenacity and his dedication to the land and this retreat centre, I just thought, wow, we could really do something with this to help so many people.”
Teneil already leads a busy life both as an actor starring in the upcoming season of the television drama series Tribal, and as a playwright currently working on her play Ayita, which she is writing, producing, and co-directing. It will premiere at the SkirtsAfire Festival in March 2022 in Edmonton. She is also a trained trauma informed wellness facilitator. After several years of living in Edmonton, she has returned with her two children to her roots in Saddle Lake and brings with her lessons she has learned through her own process of self-development, growth, and healing and of coming back to ceremony and to land-based practices.
“We are in a huge collective shift right now in humanity and the collective consciousness is rising,” says Teneil, recognizing the retreat her grandfather has long envisioned can play an important role in bringing together healers, creators, educators and “people that are involved in community work, people that are involved in igniting our stories back into our communities as Indigenous people.”
While they see people from many heritages and cultures benefiting from the experience of the healing through nature retreat in the years to come, both Ben and Teneil recognize the significant role it can potentially play in the healing journey of residential school survivors and the families of those children that did not come home.
“Although it is a very deep and heavy time, and my prayers are with the survivors and with the spirits of those children who never made it home, it’s time when a collective healing is also going to happen. I just hope that we prepare. What my mosoom (grandfather) provides is a space for our people to call our spirits back to who we are, and to come and give it to the land and sit with the land. We are a part of the land.”
“I think when people come here, they will start to feel there is something else they can turn to, to ease their mind, become calmer, to become kinder, to become more loving – that's what this place is all about,” Ben says.
He is comfortable letting his granddaughter take the lead now that he feels the land is ready. He still has things he wants to do but sees himself now more of a caretaker of what he has created.
“No, it’s not complete,” he said of his vision. “I want to continue to dream. I want to continue to do creative things. I have a creative mind and I’m very blessed about that.”
Teneil describes her grandfather as a visionary and a storyteller. Each time she sits with him or walks the land with him she is grateful for those shared moments.
“I will forever be grateful that I have him as my grandfather. I really respect his vision and who he is as a human and his whole intention behind building this for so long. I think it really needs to be seen, it needs to be shared and I really hope only that I can just do but a fraction of what he has done.”
