MD Students Reflect on the Indigenous Learning Experience at Wanuskewin Heritage Park

Participating in Indigenous experiences are vital to learning and understanding. They are part of USask’s and the college’s commitment to honouring the land and living in peace, respect, and harmony with its traditional peoples.

Recently, first-year MD students from the Class of 2029 at the Saskatoon Campus went on an excursion to Wanuskewin. This excursion focused on receiving lessons from Indigenous teachers to support their growth and understanding of the importance of cultural awareness and respect. The day included: 1) a nature walk with a focus on understanding the plant life, what it can teach you, and medicinal uses, 2) building a teepee and learning about the significance of its structure to life and growing, and 3) a presentation of a traditional hoop dance which demonstrated the interconnectivity of all things.

Three students sat down to talk to me about the day and what it meant to them: Shahd Nabhan (she/her), Hamza Saghir (he/him), and Sophie Dyke (she/her).  

Shahd: I wasn’t sure what to expect at all. I knew it would help us understand Indigenous cultural, historical, and spiritual context for our education. I was an excited type of nervous about what I was going to be learning. I was especially excited for building the teepee. I’d only seen them in photos before.

Sophie: Going into the day, I had no idea what to expect. Seeing this experience in our student schedule made me hopeful that this will be the first of many experiences to further our education. I’m also not from Saskatchewan and I didn’t have much knowledge about Indigenous communities here. I was excited to learn about Saskatchewan history.

Hamza: I’ve been to Wanuskewin previously and enjoyed it. I was particularly excited about hoop dancing because it’s something I haven’t done or really seen before. I was excited to see how the space changed and what specifically I was going to do with the experience.

Shahd:  I don’t think I have a specific highlight – the highlight was my whole day. Every single activity I genuinely enjoyed. There was a lot of things I didn’t know Indigenous communities do. For instance, I knew sage was a sacred plant but didn’t know Indigenous communities boil it, drink it, or breathe it in when unwell. I do that in my culture too when I’m sick. I didn’t know there was different types of sage here.

I also didn’t know you can tell different seasons by a fruit’s colour and shape. After that day, I still watch for poplar and aspen trees when I walk. During the nature walk, I was told the leaves flip when it’s going to be windy or rainy, and now that’s what I look for.

For the teepee building, I didn’t realize every part of building the teepee resembled a specific thing. And when Lawrence did the dance, he spoke about circular things to connect back to the circle of life, like a brain and an apple. When he was doing the hoop dance and transformed from one thing to another, it helped me see his lesson a lot better. 

Sophie: I really enjoyed the nature walk because I don’t have much plant knowledge. To learn about plants native to where we live, and their uses was fascinating. It’s important to understand medicinal plant use as lots of drugs have been designed from them.  

I found that the hoop dancing and teepee teachings were so impactful because they showed immense cultural meaning. It helped highlight meaning in my own life. As someone who grew up in a very different culture with less structure and meaning, it opened my eyes to a whole different world. Seeing the spiritual and cultural connections to physical activity was enlightening and an important reminder as a future physician.

Hamza: To me the highlight was the hoop dancing. The person leading the hoop dancing, Lawrence, had done a presentation at my elementary school. He was talking about how everything is interconnected and had us all pull out a blade of grass. He helped us see it was circular just like the earth we were sitting on, and how so our mind and body is too. It was mind-blowing then, and my mind is still blown over a decade later to have this same person teaching me something in a different context.

Shahd: For me, I think the most meaningful thing I learned was how interconnected land, culture, and community is. Every single pole in a teepee is interconnected to the next one. While building it, you need to go around in the circle of life. You have to do it with other family members. Even the tree we were standing under for one of our teachings had lessons. You only take away from nature what you need. The top of the tree you leave for the birds and other things that can fly, and you take what’s at your height. The things at the bottom you leave for those who cannot access anything higher. If you take from a tree, you also take something you can plant and grow to replace it.

In medicine, I feel like if you come from a place where you don’t understand cultural humility, then you can’t treat the person as a whole. My family uses a lot of plants for medicine, but we also use western medicine. Sometimes doctors dismiss natural medicine altogether, but in return, some people dismiss western medicine. In reality, it’s best to try and combine the two. Seeing a person as a whole, including their history and culture, helps address everything and makes sure you can give the best treatment.

Sophie: I think the most impactful part of the day was seeing the deep meaning and intention behind actions like building the teepee and dancing. Also, having immense respect for people, animals, and everything on earth. As a physician, you can’t only look at medicine. People are so much more than a diagnosis; having their own culture, medicinal beliefs, and connections. I don’t have a lot of background knowledge in Indigenous culture but increasing my understanding of the culture will help not only with medicine, but in identifying cultural supports.

For instance, knowing about medicinal plants can help me direct a patient to an elder who knows more. Medicine has such a poor history with Indigenous people. Having an understanding and knowledge of Indigenous culture will make it a lot easier to find comfort for some patients and help me integrate their culture with western medicine.

Hamza: The most important thing for me was understanding what cultural relativism actually looks like. The teepee building exercise at a symbolic and literal level showed stages of life with benchmarks that people within the community want to hit. Like before you’re an adult, you should know what happiness and joy is, as well as have respect and humility. In our medical lessons, we went over lectures that spoke about the growth chart milestones, which I now see as a parallel, other way of knowing.

There was a lot of value in what was taught and understanding certain specific concepts by certain ages. What happens to those who don’t hit those milestones? If you’re an adult who doesn’t know respect and humility, what would that look like? For the poles, if that pole wasn’t there, maybe the teepee isn’t as strong and as balanced. If you’re a physician and you don’t have that, perhaps you won’t be aware enough to know what your patients can teach you. The Indigenous ways of knowing is something I really took away from the day.

Sophie: I think that certain actions for reconciliation can be very performative. It makes me excited to see that the College of Medicine is taking real steps towards reconciliation and helping us meet the calls to action. It felt like things were being put into motion to train better physicians and support Indigenous peoples. I hope we continue to learn more about culture and medicine to support Indigenous populations better.

Shahd: I want to continue participating and engaging in similar experiences. In Ontario I didn’t have these same exposures. This is a great way to involve the students in diverse communities. It’s a privilege to be in class and receive education, but receiving this knowledge from the community gives a different perspective than what you may learn in class. I am advocating for more experiences like this.

Hamza: I think they said it perfectly. I have nothing to add.