Healing from trauma in Wet’suwet’en
By Brandi Morin
One and a half hour’s drive up a mountainous gravel road near Houston, B.C. is a secluded, Indigenous-run healing lodge. The route there is lined by thick woodlands encircled by towering snow capped peaks and is parallel to a sacred river of the Wet’suwet’en tribal peoples who have called this stunning landscape home for millennia.
The Unist’ot’en Healing Center is tucked a few hundred feet from the road, nestled along the sacred Wedzin Kwa river where a large, two-story building constructed with thick logs harvested from the forest hosts a kitchen, dining room, learning center, bathroom facilities and bunk bed clad rooms for various guests. Several other cabins and storage sheds, a smokehouse and gear for living in the backcountry dot the large clearing, along with a children’s park. This is a remote sanctuary of restoration initially dreamed up by Wet’suwet’en tribal member Dr. Karla Tait and her aunt Freda Huson.