Amanda Vaughan
Northern News Services
Monday, April 02, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Be'sha Blondin beams with joy at the mention of Nats'eju' Dahk'e's healing camp.

"Let me tell you a story," she says. The story is that of a facility in Old Fort Rae, which is about 20 minutes by boat out of Yellowknife.

Accessible only by boat in the summer, it belongs to the North Slave Metis Alliance and is used for cultural purposes such as language programs and sharing of traditional knowledge. It is the new home to the Sacred Fire Healing Camp.

According to Blondin, a healing camp encompasses many angles of holistic healing involving many traditional aboriginal activities.

From craft making, tanning and sweat lodges to workshops designed for personal, family and community development, she says the aim is to heal the nation when it is not healthy.

And it takes a lot of work and participation to heal a nation.

Nats'eju'Dahk' e, which translates into "a place of healing," is a charity organization, which has been running programs just like this since 2002.

Blondin says they had an office in Yellowknife, but there frequently weren't enough of the organizers around to justify keeping an entire office, so they moved their Sacred Circle programs to the offices of the Healing Drum Society. There they run men's and women's talking circles, drum circles and sewing circles.

Nats'eju' Dahk'e typically gets its funding piecemeal from the federal and territorial governments, the city, various businesses in Yellowknife and several churches in town.

However, Blondin, who is the Keeper of the Lodge for the charity, says it can be difficult to get funding for her type of organization.

This is why they held a fundraising dry dance at the Tree of Peace Friendship Centre on Thursday evening, to help raise money for the Sacred Fire Healing Camp.

"We just thought, why should we wait (for outside funding)," said Blondin. She said that the motivation to hold the dance was also just to simply have a good time.

"We wanted to make a difference in Yellowknife, to bring the community together and just have fun," she said with a smile.

The healing value of just bringing people together to do things that bring them joy is reflected in a lot of the activities that Blondin describes. Nats'eju' Dahk'e aims its programs at residential school survivors, and their families, but Blondin says that the healing camp is open to people of any age and race, noting that they also do a lot of work with youth. The camps are simply for people who need healing.

"To use Yellowknife as an example, you see so many people out on the streets, so many people with this anger," she says, going on to say that many people's problems are tied in with their family. Blondin explains, "to heal one person, you have to heal the family."