Not long ago, I spent some time hiking at Bon Echo Provincial Park. It is near the small village of Cloyne, which is about 150km west of Ottawa, between Kaladar and Eganville. The area is very lightly populated, with a smattering of tiny hamlets in a vast region of gently rolling hills that is just on the other side of the Ottawa Valley.

The park itself has a fascinating history. It sits on a fault line, with Mazinaw lake filling a deep ridge between two plates of ancient rock that are part of the Canadian Shield, making it a place of interest for geologists. This may be why it has long been a sacred place for First Nations peoples. Algonquin pictographs on the rock that depict shamans, spirits and magico-religious symbols are up to 1000 years old. They were preserved by a thin coating of natural glass that comes from rain falling on silica that has trickled down the rock for ages.

Its modern history began with the Bon Echo Inn, a large retreat facility that was built by Dr Weston Price in 1910. Dr Price was a dentist from the Mazinaw region who practiced there before moving to the US. He is of interest to integrative medicine because of his seminal work, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Based on his travels around the world over several years, it describes in vivid detail – with hundreds of photos – how indigenous children around the world developed terrible dental health – cavities, crooked teeth and shrunken lower jaws – when they abandoned their traditional diet in favor of a modern diet based on refined grains. The usual explanation for the disturbingly common need for orthodontics is that children have ‘one jaw from the mother and the other from the father’ and they just don’t fit. The truth is probably closer to what Dr Price described.

I was amazed to see Dr Price’s picture on a placard in the park. It was next to a picture of the Denison family, who took over in the 1920s and turned the inn into an artist colony, where spiritualism and creative expression were the order of the day. It is impressive if only for the fact that the owner was a woman – one of the most important leaders of the feminist movement at the time, Ms Denison was the brains behind the operation. There were only vague references to what actually went on there, but I suspect their gatherings were fascinating and colorful, and I must admit I would like to have been there to join in the antics.

The Bon Echo Inn burned down in a lightning fire in 1936, and a few fragments and relics remain in a Visitors Centre at the Park. Since the fire, there has only been nature. The family decided to replant trees throughout the property, and eventually donated it to the province. At over 17,000 acres, it was one of the largest donations ever made. The park remains well-kept, if heavily used, and the hiking and canoeing trails nearby open into an immense world of natural wonders.

This experience brought me home, in a sense. When I returned from my travels with the desire to establish a centre for Integrative Medicine, the ultimate vision was always to incorporate nature into the healing process. Nature heals us – because we belong there. Holistic healers and neuroscientists alike have examined this phenomenon, linking it to such factors as the living energy of trees, the negative ions in the air, the benefit of so much green color, the soothing sounds and the irregular visual shapes of the natural world. At Bon Echo, an additional factor is the quartz in the granite rock of the Shield, and quartz has been used around the world because of the fascinating electrical properties that come from its unique structure.

I would like to start taking our patients for walks in nature. This will be informal, in a group setting, and will give patients a chance to ask me questions that are on their minds that might not require a doctor’s appointment. It will also get them breathing good air, walking vigorously, talking to each other and spending time in the forest. As an added bonus, I will get to spend more time in the forest, which will be good for me. The natural world has become the most spiritual place I have found. I consider it my church and my temple, and it has always had a healing effect on me.

Except for the mosquitoes.

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