Kapabamayak Achaak Healing Forest , St. John’s Park
Located in Winnipeg's St. John’s Park on Treaty One Territory, Kapabamayak Achaak Healing Forest is a place of learning, healing and reconciling and a living memorial for children lost or impacted by residential schools. Stirred by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada published 94 Calls to Action, a group of community members assembled to respond to criteria on the list, eventually identifying the need to create an urban healing forest.
While Shaun Finnigan, a Métis artist and designer, designed an initial version of the conceptual plan, the group hired ft3 to help the group enhance and steer their vision into built form.
The final design and subsequent realization reflected the circular form, with an amphitheatre-style seating arrangement. It encouraged visitors to approach the eastern entrance, punctuated by rough limestone blocks that form the circle’s exterior frame. Moving toward the centre, texture and colour patterns appear as different surface materials, including dark crushed granite, reddish-brown crushed clay, smooth-cut limestone pavers, and rough limestone flagstone arranged into four quadrants aligned on the cardinal points. Each of these quadrants offers a resting place on one of eight partially sawn oak-wood logs (cants) made from locally salvaged oak. The cut ends of each cant reveal the past, inviting and encouraging guests to contemplate and share their stories.
At the circle’s centre is a refined and precisely fabricated granite medicine wheel rising from the ground. Local artist Natalie Rostad Desjarlais brought this element to life further by designing Grandmother Stones, which she hand-selected from a quarry and painted the imagery she discovered on each stone’s natural form. Each Grandmother Stone sits in a cardinal direction around the circle but at different lengths from the Medicine Wheel, only apparent once the user stands in the middle.
Elder Peetanacoot Nenakawekapo named the Healing Forest "Kapabamayak Achaak" during its official unveiling, which means "Wandering Spirit" in Anishinaabe.
