As the newly planted Traditional Medicine Garden at St. Paul’s Hospital enters its first rainy season, Squamish Nation Indigenous Knowledge Keeper and ethnobotanist Tʼuyʼtʼtanat-Cease Wyss is already looking ahead to her vision for the garden when it blooms this spring. With her guidance and partnership with Providence Health Care’s Indigenous Wellness and Reconciliation team, the garden was planted to create a healing space for patients accessing treatment for substance use in the Road to Recovery Program. This healing space will feature traditional plant medicines and foods that reflect plants that are native to the Host Nations’ territories.
“It’s a place where patients can come to rest, and it’s safe,” says Cease. “People in recovery are often very sensitive, feeling raw and vulnerable as they open up after closing off for so long. But seeing birds, bees, butterflies—it just takes the edge off. You can be anxious, sit there for five minutes, and suddenly, a hummingbird appears right in front of you, or you notice the bumblebees around. It brings back that child-like wonder, which is so important for people in recovery—to reconnect with that part of themselves they left behind. Gardens have a way of making people feel like a little kid again.”
By spring, she expects flowers and medicines emerging and plans on delivering workshops where people can learn about the medicines, plant new seedlings, gather traditional foods and medicines like nodding onions, red huckleberry, silver leaf, and wild ginger, and even taste these offerings directly from the garden—a way of honouring plants as both food and medicine for Indigenous Peoples. Plants were chosen for their healing properties and as a bridge to the natural world patients can connect to while in treatment.
A peaceful space for reflection and healing
Sheri Hundseth, Director of Indigenous Relations and Community Engagement at Providence, frames the project’s purpose as part of Providence Health Care’s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation. “We need to ensure there are gentle and culturally safe spaces that support holistic Indigenous wellness and healing for any patients or families who access care in our hospital,” she says.
By creating a judgment-free and safe environment reflective of Indigenous traditions, the garden offers a sanctuary where Indigenous people feel welcomed, calm, and safe—and importantly, somewhere where they can participate in ceremony and connect with Providence’s Indigenous Wellness Liaisons. It is also a place where patients can reconnect with spirituality, culture and ceremony that they may have become disconnected with over the course of their journeys with trauma and addiction.
This year, Providence launched our Indigenous Design Guidelines, one tool to facilitate the embedding of Indigenous Cultural Safety across our built environments and physical spaces. The guidelines include Medicine Gardens, landscaping and gardens—this R2R project is one example of putting our commitments to Reconciliation in action.
“It has been wonderful to collaborate with the Road to Recovery team who have fully embraced Reconciliation and cultural safety into their program,“ adds Hundseth.
“I always think of gardens as a place where people can come and become connected to the earth, wherever it is. I hope that this garden is a window to the bigger forest for people that come, that it helps them feel calm,” Wyss explains.
Wyss’s vision for the garden centers on creating a peaceful space for reflection and physical healing, particularly for those navigating addiction and mental health support through the Road to Recovery Program at St. Paul’s Hospital.
“When people are in recovery, they’re used to mind-altering substances,” she explains. “Learning about a garden and engaging with it physically offers a positive change, an alternative to harmful risks.”
The tactile experience of touching the plants and the therapeutic act of gardening allow patients to reconnect with themselves and the environment around them. In addition to its therapeutic value, the garden serves as a subtle yet profound act of decolonization.
“Anytime I get to install a whole bunch of Indigenous plants, that, for me, is very decolonial,” Wyss notes. By fostering native plant life and introducing practices like bringing in mycelium-enriched leaves as mulch, the garden connects plants in a way that mimics natural forest ecosystems, underscoring the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.
“Plants like to talk in their own language to each other, and they like to check in on each other to make sure they’re healthy,” she explains, likening this connectivity to the communal aspect of Indigenous families, communities and Nations.
A living symbol of cultural resilience
For Wyss, who has been creating Indigenous gardens for nearly 30 years, this project is personal to her and therapeutic.
“I get to get my hands in the dirt,” she says. “Earth that’s rich and dark is decolonized; it’s rich, it’s fed, and things are attracted to it.”
In the context of health care, this grounding experience brings solace to those in recovery. The garden, she believes, acts as a calming environment where patients can escape from the stresses of clinical settings, enjoy moments of childlike wonder, and reconnect with nature.
Beyond individual recovery, the Traditional Medicine Garden and actively restoring Indigenous plant species on unceded territories is a living symbol of cultural resilience and the advancement of Reconciliation.
Providence Health Care’s commitment to the project reflects a broader shift toward cultural safety and respect in health care, helping both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people gain insight into the wisdom and healing power embedded in traditional Indigenous teachings, knowledge and the natural world.
“My hope is that people come and find wonderment here,” add Cease, “that they find solace when they need it, but also inspiration to see what Indigenous plants are and what they bring.”
