Duane Hicks
Some local residents are saying smoke from a ceremonial fire is a health concern for them.
Elm Avenue residents Bob and Bridget Dobransky and George Chabot spoke to town council Monday night to complain about smoke coming from Fort Frances Tribal Area Health Services at 601 King’s Highway.
FFTAHS operates a sweat lodge there, and a small fire is lit to heat rocks to warm the sweat lodge as part of a traditional healing ceremony.
During the start-up process, the fire generates smoke.
Bridget Dobransky said they have been living in their home for 32 years and never had any problems with FFTAHS being there until this past spring, when it began doing certain ceremonies that have created smoke.
“It’s not that we have a problem with the fire,” she noted. “It’s the smoke that’s created from the large fire, and the sparks that are coming up to the tree line and over the fence.
“We find that it’s a health issue,” Dobransky added. “We can’t open up our windows or sit in our back yard.
“Also, we were never notified about the [bylaw] changing, and it’s causing a lot of health issues for our neighbours and ourselves.”
“I just hope you look into this. We talked a lot over the last month or two,” said Bob Dobransky.
“There’s problems but I’m sure it can be worked out.”
Chabot, who lives adjacent to the healing centre, said he has asthma and a problem with nasal polyps, and is allergic to excessive smoke of any sort.
“I’m not here to say I’m against their sweat lodges,” he stressed.
“I am here to ask if they’d consider an alternative method to heating the rocks rather than an open fire—maybe something enclosed with a stovepipe like everybody else.
“Or even better would be possibly heating the rocks with electricity,” he suggested.
A card-carrying Métis, Chabot said he realizes traditions are important but would appreciate it if alternative methods would be considered.
FFTAHS executive director Calvin Morrisseau assured council that the organization has done its due diligence in trying to make their facility as safe as possible.
“When I took over the lead at Tribal Health over two years ago, we never used many of our traditional ways of healing,” he noted.
“Since we’ve done that, many of our people have been able to find healing in that way,” added Morrisseau.
“People have learned to sing, learned to dance,” he said.
“You have to remember our people come from a place where our people . . . couldn’t even dance at one time.”
In 1965, First Nations were not allowed to dance in their own way because it was against the law, Morrisseau recalled, and it wasn’t until 1970 that people were allowed to take up their sacred items.
Morrisseau said he is a lodge keeper. It’s an important task which he learned from an elder over the course of seven years.
“That particular religious ceremony is not to be taken lightly among our people,” he explained.
“I have had people who have come in and their lives have been changed tremendously.”
Morrisseau said he recalls floundering in society as a young person and nearly died. The first time he attended a sweat lodge, he found out what his problem was—he had denied his own ancestry.
“That lodge brought me back to life,” he remarked.
“And I know there are many people that rely heavily on that service that we provide.”
Morrisseau said if the town is considering changing the open-air burning bylaw that it remember the sweat lodge is a sacred religious ceremony.
Coun. Wendy Brunetta asked if it was possible to heat the rocks by an alternative means. But Morrisseau replied the heating methods are traditional, and the rocks are living things called “grandfathers.”
“We have to treat them a certain way to bring that life, that spirit, into the lodge,” he explained.
Elder Richard Morrison said great care is taken with a sweat lodge fire, and in 48 years of attending them, he’s never seen one go out of control.
But more importantly, the sweat lodge ceremony is “traditional therapy.”
“The importance of what we do is helping our people develop a comfort and a calmness and a peace in how it is that we deal with everything that’s coming to us as a people,” said Morrison.
Bylaw enforcement officer Patrick Briere said the bylaw department has been to FFTAHS and spoken with elders and staff.
He noted FFTAHS has taken every precaution available to them to mitigate any disturbances to their neighbours.
As well, compliance with town bylaws has been met or exceeded by FFTAHS and their staff, he added, noting he and Fort Frances Fire Chief Frank Sheppard even have been invited to partake in sweat lodge activities to get a better understanding of how the ceremony works.
Briere said FFTAHS reports on its website how frequent and for how long they burn. Normally, it’s twice a month.
Council passed a revised open-air burning bylaw in 2012.
Chief Sheppard noted council has authority under the Fire Prevention and Protection Act to revise it.
But if council plans to make the bylaw more stringent, the changes in the bylaw have to apply to everyone in the community and enforcement has to be consistent.
“My life becomes real simple should council decide that there’s no open-air burning, but that may not be in the interest of the community,” Chief Sheppard remarked.
