RADILIH KOE'/FORT GOOD HOPE - There's no time to feel sorry for yourself while you're fighting for survival out on the land.

For almost 10 years now, Charlie and Laura Tobac have been trying to share that lesson with others at their healing camp outside of Fort Good Hope.

The couple built the camp about 64 km from their home in Good Hope in 2000, nine years after Charlie successfully kicked his addictions and abusive behaviour. The 58-year-old has been sober for more than 18 years - he worked 13 of those years as an addiction counsellor. Charlie enrolled in a 28-day treatment program three times before he was able to get clean. He soon realized he wanted to organize a retreat where other people of all ages - especially younger generations - could heal by following the traditions of elders.

"My parents were really traditional, too, so I put all that together and thought I'll do something with it. And so we decided to develop different programs such as residential schools impact, dealing with it, and for a lot of young people, teaching them coping skills because of the stresses we face today in the modern world, and that's what I've been doing at my camp," Charlie said, adding that he also offers grief workshops after dealing with loss and suicide in his own family.

"I never thought I'd be where I am today and I'm so grateful for that. In the past, too, I had really close calls to death, like drowning, and that really gave me a different perspective for life," he said. "And my wife happened to be by my side supporting me through all those years of abusing all kinds of stuff, and she put up with me and today we work as a team. I'm really grateful today."

Charlie repaired and strengthened his relationship with his wife by dealing with the anger and shame left over from his experiences in residential school.

In the past few years since he faced that trauma, he said, for the first time he feels like "we're finally married."

"We just learned to cope with life, I guess. Some days it's pretty hard. Some days you feel like (you're) at the low point, other days you're feeling OK," he said, explaining they are still affected by the stresses of modern life. "We still need to cope with a lot of fear and all of that because of so many tragedies in our lives - we don't know what to expect with the next phone call. So that kind of fear is always there with us, but we still need to deal with that."

Laura Tobac, 56, loves being out at the camp because there are no distractions, no negativity. There, she hones and passes on her traditional talents, such as moosehide tanning and sewing. She and Charlie built their two cabins as part of a shared dream, she said, after he recovered from his addictions and began to counsel others.

"I really supported him in that area. And not only at that time - we still support one another in everything we do, everything we say. Oh yeah, we go through hard times, but we always manage to get through it," Laura said. "As long as we understand each other, there's nothing hard about it."

The camp is a beautiful retreat from life's difficulties, Laura said.

"We like to invite people to come join us and get away from everything, all the chaos that's going on today," she said. "You need to ask yourself what is it that you really want or what is it that you really need?"Charlie says the camp, including a six-week winter program for inmates, doesn't receive any funding.

"A lot of it comes from my pocket. I just get my own gas. Gas is expensive; food is expensive," he said.

But at the end of those six weeks teaching inmates how to fish, hunt and survive on the land, he feels as if he's making a difference.

"We don't help them; they help themselves. But we give them all the tools," he said.

"When you're out there, it's like finding your grounds. You go through different feelings - the loneliness, missing the community, your friends, it goes on, but this is where you get connected with your feelings and that's what the land is all about."

Being on the land is in his blood, he says. He sees their camp as a place for holistic healing, where people can find themselves within their traditions.

"All those things could be taught by us as parents and godparents and that's what the idea was. It was a dream where I can have a place for my kids to go to when

"I'm not around if they need a place to go to. That's something that I always wanted to have for them and I have that for them today and I'm glad I had that kind of dream."