Healing and connection: Inside the Humble Lodge's two-spirit fasting camp

CBC

8 hours ago

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Dr. James Makokis is knee-deep in mud, water and frogs. The nehiyô (Plains Cree) two-spirit physician from Saddle Lake Cree Nation wields an axe, leading a group of helpers through the muck.
They're gathering willows to bring back to tapahtêyimôkamik — the Humble Lodge — a project Makokis leads near Pigeon Lake in central Alberta, which aims to create inclusive ceremonies for trans and two-spirit youth.
"This is one of the only spaces where two-spirit and trans folks and their families and allies can come and be in a safe space," he said.
"It's exciting to see people coming back to who they are, and who we are as a people."
Coming out, and coming of age
Makokis started the Humble Lodge with researchers Lana Whiskeyjack, James Knibb-Lamouche and Amanda Almond.
Once a year, they hold a two-spirit fasting camp, an inclusive rite of passage ceremony created with and for 2SLGBTQ+ Indigenous youth.
"Rites of passage are held when people go through puberty," said Makokis.
"To acknowledge that transition time between childhood to adulthood."
For years, many Indigenous people have lacked access, or even knowledge of these kinds of ceremonies, he said, and it's been more difficult for 2SLGBTQ+ people.
The practice aims to build strength, resilience and self-esteem, as well as a connection to community.
Makokis says these coming-of-age ceremonies are often structured by gender. For example, different sweat lodges are built for men and women, and the tradition is based on a binary.
At the Humble Lodge, these rites are open to all identities and their families.
"They can dress how they want, they can sit on whatever side of the lodge that they want — and they fully are celebrated with all of their gifts and responsibilities that they have as tastawiyiniwak, the in-between people," said Makokis.
This is the second year they've held a two-spirit fasting camp in this location and the number of participants has doubled. There are 12 fasters, ranging in age from 11 to 66.
"That really speaks to the need, of how desperate it is for this type of space to be created all across the country," he said.
A four-day fast
The camp starts on a Saturday in July, when participants, helpers and community members arrive on the land northeast of Pigeon Lake. It was donated in 2024 by a B.C. woman who saw Makokis's call out to the community.
"We needed 160 acres of land with trees and water and preferably mountain views. So we got, you know, two out of the three things," he laughs.
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On Sunday, the helpers gather willows and build the sweat lodge and fire for the week's ceremonies. The fast participants make offerings, carefully tying hangings made of willow they will take into the forest that will carry their prayers.
They consume gallons of vegetable juice, coconut water and sports drinks, to prepare physically for four days without food and water.
On Monday morning, everyone wakes up early. A crowd gathers around the fire next to the camp kitchen.
Participants are allowed to bring only what they can carry into the forest.
Warren Isbister-Bear has Ikea bags stuffed with tarps, a sleeping bag, his drum and the handmade willow offerings he brought with from Saskatoon.
"For me I'm taking in my prayers," he said.
Isbister-Bear is in his early 40s and two-spirit from Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. He came last summer with his husband Osemis to participate as helpers, before he decided to undergo the fast himself.
"Growing up in a community that has had that [ceremonial piece] cut off, I think I'm at a point in my life when I really want to connect back to that and step into the role of two-spirit people," he said.
"Our communities are suffering, our families are suffering now. It's a way for me to, let's say be the change you want to see."
Isbister-Bear is one of many fasters who are older and are now taking part in the ceremony that they could not access in their teen years.
A chance to reconnect
Chase Willier, 66, is a Sixties Scoop survivor with connections to Treaty 6 and Treaty 8 territory. He came from Vancouver to participate in this ceremony on the land where he was born.
"This is my territory," he said. "And it's taken a whole lifetime to be here."
Willier is trans and involved in advocacy work on the West Coast. While he's fasted for ceremony before, this community and the work happening here feel different.
"I'm learning about inclusion in a very different way," he said. "In a more honourable way and a respectful way."
The youngest participant this summer is Makokis's 11-year-old nephew Atayoh. While he has yet to go four days, it's his second year entering the forest with his mother, Janice. They will fast for one night together.
"It's very rare for children his age to be going out there fasting," said Janice. "We started to prepare him, so that when he does have to [go out and do his rites of passage] it's a seamless transition."
Atayoh spends early Monday packing his bag with his mother, quietly preparing for the experience. When asked how he felt about last year, he whispered, "happy."
The hope is that over time, this camp will reach younger generations and ensure they have access to inclusive ceremonies when they most need it.
The ability to sit with yourself and find your centre is essential, said Makokis.
"And when that doesn't happen, we see some of the challenges, especially with trans and two-spirity youth who experience higher rates of suicidality or self-harm, or mental health issues like anxiety and depression," he said.
This rite of passage is meant to introduce young Indigenous fasters to Miyo-pimâtisiwin, the Cree idea of living the good life.
"This work is lifesaving. It's transformational," said Makokis.
Living the good life
On Monday morning, fasters enter the sweat lodge together.
There is a berry ceremony, before they walk down one of three forest paths for male, female and two-spirit identifying participants.
For four days, they live in the bush and sleep in a structure they make out of willows and tarps. They bring medicines and drums in with them to support their prayers, and are visited during the day by Makokis and others.
Part of that is a health check where Makokis leans into his training as a physician. This year, he also has a medical resident keeping an eye on the fasters. They're available at all hours, in case something happens.
It's this walking between the world of Western medicine and returning traditional health systems to communities that has become Makokis's life's work.
"Most non-Indigenous people in Canada don't know our health system and the beauty of it, which takes place in nature far away from what they would normally see," said Makokis.
"The cool thing about our way of life is that it inherently promotes healing, wellness, community, healing, strength, relationships. All of which strengthen and empower someone to be able to make good decisions, and to feel a sense of belonging."
They are who they are
The fasters leave the forest early on Friday morning and enter the sweat lodge together before they come out to reconnect with family, friends and loved ones for a feast.
Dishes upon dishes are piled high on plates, each representing a loved one who has died, and the entire camp joins in to help eat every bite of food. Everything from pemmican and moose-nose soup, ramen and popcorn chicken.
Isbister-Bear feels transformed.
"Life changing," he said. "I'm just trying to, I'm trying to catch up to it."
Isbister-Bear and the other fasters close their rite of passage saying "niya oma niya", or I am who I am in Cree. They yell it as loud as they can four times, surrounded by the community cheering them on.
"Sâkihitowin, in Cree that's love," says Isbister Bear. "It's that kinship, that bond that we don't even have to be connected through relation, but we're connected through ceremony."
"Sometimes we go our whole lives searching for that connection. I think I found that here."
Those words resonate with Chase Willier, who emerges from four days on his own territory renewed.
"I am who I am, but I'm a full human being here," he said. "As a young person struggling through my life and going through a lot of stuff — that I think there's a real almost a completion, a wholeness that all these things are finally integrating into my being in a very deep, deep way."
"I'm home. My spirit recognizes my ceremony, my language, everything."
The camp ends with a gifting ceremony, where fasters are presented with handmade quilts donated by Calgarian Cheryl Arksion, a non-Indigenous quilter who heard about the Humble Lodge through social media and wanted to get involved.
The community exchanges blankets, earrings, handmade friendship bracelets and stickers– connecting and thanking each other for their presence before a gratitude song is sung, and it's all over for this year.
But Willier will carry this week with him when he goes.
"I was five years old, living in Edmonton with my settler parents, my adopted parents. And all I wanted was to go home, know my culture, speak my language. That's all I wanted," he remembers.
"So here I am."
Reconnecting with resilience
"It took a lot of work and commitment and time to build a safe, inclusive, loving, kind space that every single young trans person or two-spirit person can come and feel safe and be completely who they are," Makokis said.
This year, more than 100 people visited and participated in the camp, with families coming from Quebec and Ontario to support.
Makokis has also been working to expand the community around the project, inviting health researchers and doctors from the University of Toronto, McMaster University and more to engage in Indigenous-led, two-spirit and trans-focused health practices.
It's part of his larger work – rebuilding the Nehiyaw medical system from birth to death.
"We see the transformation, the healing in our people when they participate and all people when they come and return to their humanity — because that is what it's all about."
While the Humble Lodge now has a permanent home, there is still work to do.
He wants to hold ceremonies and programs year-round on the land, offering knowledge sharing and reconnecting people — Indigenous and non-Indigenous — to treaties, medicines and health.
"It's not culture and ceremonies, it's our way of life, our health system, education system and medical system," he said.
And making sure those spaces are inclusive and celebrate the two-spirit community is at the core.
"They're that beautiful rainbow space that exists between this black and white binary," he said. "And I am excited for other nations to start doing this and dismantling patriarchy, and dismantling misogyny and dismantling homophobia and transphobia.
"We all need love, sâkihitowin, love is the best medicine that we can give one another and each other."