Student group seeks city partnership for urban sweat lodge
A group seeking a space for people to practise their culture will get a meeting with Prince Albert’s mayor to discuss their plans moving forward.
Students from the First Nations University of Canada appeared at city council on April 23 seeking land for a proposed urban sweat lodge. Jessica Wozniak, a member of the student group, said a sweat lodge would help live up to the city’s multicultural action plan.
“We feel like it’s part of reconciliation, to live up to the promise of recognizing Indigenous spirituality,” Wozniak said. “We have almost 50 churches, a mosque [and] different organizations catering to different spiritualties, but there are no Indigenous sweat lodges in Prince Albert.”
Their motives for bringing such a facility to the Gateway to the North were mixed, however the group noted the positive mental health benefits of having a sweat lodge in the city.