In all, 35 youth were taken 80 kilometres from Fond du Lac to the Athabasca Sand Dunes. (Submitted photo/Michelle Zinck)

By Derek Cornet

Indigenous Perspective

Pilot project at Athabasca Sand Dunes focused on Dene health

Jul 19, 2021 | 5:38 PM

It was a meaningful six-day trip for 35 youth from Fond du Lac Denesuline First Nation, who ventured out to their ancestral lands at the Athabasca Sand Dunes.

It was arranged by Michelle Zinck, who is currently a master’s student in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. The project was part of community engaged research she’s completing on her thesis focused on Indigenous and Dene health.

“I wanted to find a health framework for the community and through Dene story work,” Zinck said. “I wanted to do it out on the land because, from a Dene perspective, health has a lot to do with the land. It encompasses everything.”

Zinck explained the purpose of the project was to promote protective cultural factors, so the kids were taught how to offer tobacco, plant medicines and the creation story of the Athabasca Sand Dunes. She hopes the youth who attended, which were between 11 and 18, use the knowledge to cope with stress they are feeling in their lives.

“We have extremely high rates of suicide with climate change, systemic racism and all of these environmental changes, and now the pandemic is exuberating all these stressors that the youth are feeling,” Zinck said.

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The project was called Nih Nuheghełnai: Land-Based Healing Camps for Youth Well-being and participants were transported about 80 kilometres away to the south shore of Lake Athabasca. They left July 13 and returned July 18. Zinck will be using what she learned as the foundation of a land-based healing program she’ll be completing for a PhD.

The kids spent six days learning about Dene culture and tradition. (Submitted photo/Michelle Zinck)

The Athabasca Sand Dunes are located on the southern shore of Lake Athabasca. (Submitted photo/Michelle Zinck)

Some of the learning included plant identification and sustainable harvesting. (Submitted photo/Michelle Zinck)

The project also included men and women from Fond du Lac, as well as mental health therapist. She said she received a lot of community support and couldn’t have done it without the assistance of residents.

Zinck also hopes one day her work can be used to include Indigenous Peoples in more environmental health research.

“There are all these environmental impact assessments going on, yet they don’t have a clear understanding of Indigenous health let alone Dene health,” she said. “I’m really trying to fill that gap and meaningfully include Indigenous Peoples and Dene people in environmental health research.”

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @saskjourno