Abstract

In recent decades, oral history and storywork have transformed the study of Indigenous health histories. Through a desire-based research framework, this study aims to foreground the many ways by which First Nations reserve communities have continuously asserted self-determination through practices of holistic, land-based wellness in Treaty Four territory. The two-part study begins in the context of the All Nations Healing Hospital in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. With a blended approach of clinical Western medicine and a robust offering of traditional Indigenous therapeutics, the hospital reflects the diverse cultural protocols of the Nêhiyawak /ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ (Plains Cree), Anihšināpē/Anishinaabe (Saulteaux), Nakoda/Assiniboine, Lakota, and Dakota. Through the voices of three co-researchers, narratives of hope and empowerment are emphasized with on-the-ground examples of healing. Building from these rooted understandings of Indigenous wellness, the study then explores the development of segregated healthcare and biomedicine in the settlement period, 1870-1950. The fight against tuberculosis in the Qu’Appelle region was headed by Doctor R. G. Ferguson, whose activities in the Fort San Sanitorium and Fort Qu’Appelle Indian Hospital reveal ideologies which prevented, and may still prevent, Indigenous-led healthcare collaboration. While Western attitudes of civilization and medical progress have asserted decidedly linear histories, Indigenous perspectives on health present a cyclical and highly adaptive knowledge base. In this way, the present success of the All Nations Healing Hospital is not simply a departure from oppressive medical systems of the past, but an ongoing reflection of cultural continuity and embodied governance in health and healing.