Dilico Anishinabek Family Care facilitates access to traditional medicine

By Rick Garrick

FORT WILLIAM — Dilico Anishinabek Family Care is holding Traditional Medicine Walk-In Clinics on Mondays at its Court St. office in Thunder Bay and Fridays at its main office at 200 Anemki Pl. in Fort William.

“We do the walk-in clinics from 9:30 to 11:30,” says Dustin Gagne, traditional medicine practitioner at Dilico. “It just gives the clients the opportunity to have that option to either pursue the traditional medicines, but to also walk with the Western way, too.”

Gagne says some of the advantages of traditional medicines are that they are accessible and all-natural.

“As long as we take care of Mother Earth, Mother Earth will take care of us,” Gagne says. “Everything you look at out there in that bush, it’s medicine, from the poplar trees to the pine cones.”

Gagne says he has had a good response about the Traditional Medicine Walk-In Clinics.

“When you go and talk with some community members, they’re very appreciative of someone going out to learn about this because not [many] people know about the medicines and know about how to go and harvest and how to process and where to look for it,” Gagne says, noting that he has been learning from Joe Pitawanakwat and Matt Levac at Creators Garden. “They’ve been showing me all of these medicines, in between 35 and 40 different medicines, and I’m continuously learning about different ones because there’s not just the two medicine people out there, there’s lots. It’s just going to take the time for me to go and offer my tobacco to these Elders and ask about these sort of medicines.”

Gagne says they are also holding a four-day Traditional Healing Clinic on Jan. 26-29, and they are also providing drop-in Traditional Medicine Teachings twice a month at the main office and the Court St. office, as well as monthly in the district offices.

“[The teachings have] been going very good, we’ve been kind of talking lots about teas and lots about ceremonies,” Gagne says. “It’s awesome when you give…an open platform like that for people to come and drop in, you get people from different walks and different stages of their learning, and they’ll actually bring things to the teachings as well. It’s almost like they’ll teach me, because I’ve learned a few things already too from these drop-in teachings. I’m really appreciative of that because it moves me forward as well.”

Tina Dennis, manager of health and wellness at Dilico, says their vision is to have a two-eyed seeing approach that blends Western care and traditional healing.

“We’re hoping to create a holistic model addressing physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being through both the Indigenous and modern practices,” Dennis says. “One of the ways that we do that is we have begun to offer a Traditional Medicine Walk-In Clinic simultaneous to the Primary Walk-In Clinic, so it’s at the exact same time when clients come in to visit a primary care provider — they also have the option to visit the traditional medicine practitioner.”

Dennis says Gagne can do up to six visits during the two-hour Traditional Medicine Walk-In Clinics.

“We need to reintroduce our medicines and our traditional ways back into our people’s lives,” Dennis says. “A lot of us were assimilated into the Canadian society. My true belief is that it’s important for us to relearn those ways so that those traditions can be carried on for generations to come and to also reintroduce medicines to the area so that we can build the capacity within the communities and they are able to access those medicines themselves.”