Nature’s medicine

While the practice of reconnecting with nature offers healing for many, for Indigenous communities, their relationship with the land has been disrupted in ways that continue to impact their health and well-being.

First Peoples Studies professor Catherine Kineweskwêw Richardson’s work highlights how colonial policies have caused these harms while emphasizing Indigenous resistance, resilience and healing.

According to Kineweskwêw Richardson, who teaches at Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs and is a member of the Métis Nation with Cree and Gwich’in roots, this divide is rooted in settler colonialism, which has particularly harmed the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples.

“In which pamphlets does it state that having one’s land stolen is bad for one’s health?” she asks.

“When you think of colonialism in northern Turtle Island or Canada, a lot of harm was done: taking people’s land away, taking their children away, putting children in the care of white, middle-class families and residential schools,” she says.

“They wanted the Earth, but also what was under it — and they still do.”

Kineweskwêw Richardson, who also serves as Concordia University Research Chair (CURC) in Indigenous Healing Knowledges, explains that this reality is often left out of contemporary discourses on the social determinants of health. Her book, Facing the Mountain: Indigenous Healing in the Shadow of Colonialism, investigates how land theft is linked to labelling Indigenous peoples’ responses — including resistance and survivance — as mental illness.

She says these labels justify state intervention and control, which compound negative health impacts for Indigenous peoples. Her research on response-based practice in healing professions examines how these health impacts emerge within broader historical and social contexts.

“I have a chapter about the radiation exposure from uranium mining in Canada’s north, particularly in the Northwest Territories,” she says. “My family experienced radiation poisoning that negatively affected children born in my family, including myself, leading to mobility issues and many surgeries. That’s the kind of thing that mining does.”

In her role as research chair, Richardson gathers Elders, Knowledge Keepers and youth from around the world to share and exchange knowledge.

“We host conferences where participants can exchange teachings, experiences and feelings. Then, the youth interview the Knowledge Keepers and publish academic papers together in a peer-reviewed journal.”

In an Indigenous worldview, she adds, humans have responsibilities to each other and the natural world in an infinite cycle of exchange and reciprocity. Protecting the natural environment is also a means of protecting human health, and vice versa.

“We’re here on this planet with the air, animals, birds, flowers, trees — all life forms. We’re all in a constant exchange and connection, whether that’s literally, energetically or metaphorically.”

Roots of resilience

Reclaiming land access is not just about environmental sustainability — it’s also about restoring cultural identity, community resilience and food sovereignty. This principle is at the heart of the Sankofa Farming Co-operative, which works to empower Black-Indigenous individuals through agriculture.

Restoring access to land, especially through agricultural practices, motivated Menelik Blackburn-Philip, BA 22, to co-found Sankofa on Loyola Campus in 2022. The student-run organic garden provides Black-Indigenous individuals with opportunities to grow their own food, drawing from traditional agricultural practices and learning from local Indigenous communities.

For high-school art teacher Isabelle Guillard, BFA 98, PhD 23, connecting youth with nature is essential. At Curé-Antoine-Labelle high school in Laval, her students have created an eco-art garden that features flower beds, a nursery with edible plants and a sculpture composed of willow arches.

Students from the school’s art, science and special-education classes participate in growing and learning about the plants, but the space also provides a refuge from a busy academic life.

“It’s nice to be outside the walls of the classroom,” says Guillard, a 2020 Concordia Public Scholar. “The garden is the only space at school to recuperate!”

Students work collaboratively with a team of teachers led by Guillard, a visual artist whose doctoral research at Concordia explored the value of outdoor education for teenagers.

While integrating the approach at the secondary level can be challenging, she is optimistic about the positive health impacts.

“Our kids need experiences that allow them to develop their creativity, express themselves and accomplish things on their own,” she says.

“By communicating and creating links with the people and environment around us, we develop confidence in ourselves and in our abilities, and we develop a sense of responsibility. It makes students aware of their impact.”

Emma Despland, a professor in Concordia’s Department of Biology, has witnessed first-hand how early nature connectedness benefits young adults. She notes that many first-year students enter the program with a passion for conservation, yet are unable to identify common plants and trees in the real world.

“Students come in passionate about the natural world and species extinction, but a lot of their knowledge is theoretical. You take them outside and ask them to identify a tree, and they haven’t had that experience,” she says. “That limited understanding of biology affects their employment opportunities. It’s an education gap that we assume people are getting through childhood — but they’re not.”

In response, Despland and student researchers Ashley Spanier-Levasseur and Lindsay Doyle, BA 23, turned a study on nature connectedness into a community outreach project. Joining forces with city-run day camps, the Finding Urban Nature (F.U.N.) project unites Montreal youth with urban greenspaces. Many participants have never experienced nature walks or insect and fauna observation.

“We are bringing kids outside, showing them the urban gardening we’re doing on campus, inviting them to touch a tree, feed some birds,” Despland explains. “Many kids, especially those living in the city, have not had this experience.”

She highlights the invaluable physical, mental and social health benefits of outdoor activities for children and youth, though stresses that limited access to these opportunities can lead to serious repercussions.

“We are experiencing negative health impacts from an unnatural lifestyle that cuts us off from the natural world. The negative health effects related to being sedentary include mental-health issues and more,” says Despland. “From a developmental perspective, what people experience as children will influence their overall health later on.

“We cannot silo health — we are all connected.”