3-hour Interpretive Program - The objectives of our Turtle Island Conservation program:

1) To foster respect for self, community, Mother Earth, and the Creator

2) To recognize and share natural landscapes valued by First Nation communities

3) To integrate traditional ways of knowing with western science to monitor, protect, respect natural landscapes

4) To integrate language, art and crafts to sustain traditional ways of knowing and among non-Aboriginals

5) To facilitate understanding of diversity of First Nation culture and ways of knowing among non-Aboriginals.

As part of the program, the youth will have numerous hands-on immersive learning opportunities to learn about the Medicine Wheel, and the teachings shared by Knowledge Keeper, Elder Bill Bertschy (Prairie Gardens' Resident Elder). For more information about this program, please email reserve@prairiegardens.org

Our Turtle Island Conservation Programs take place at our National Healing Forest. The forest has outdoor gathering places for ceremony, reflection, meditation, and prayers.  As a Knowledge Keeper and Sweat Lodge Elder, Chief Standing Bear has masterfully carved harmonious walking trails through this old-growth parkland boreal forest of Spruce, Trembling Aspen, Balsam Poplar, Highbush Cranberries, Wild Raspberries, Willows, Wild Roses, Hazelnut, Chokecherries and Saskatoons, all indigenous plants of Alberta.

There are many wildlife trails that criss-cross this island of a forest, surrounded by farmlands,  Resident moose, deer, coyotes and fox, and forest Spirit Animals make their home in the forest include the occasional beaver or black bear, and the eagle and raven, that fly overhead or nest in the tree tops.