Pilgrimage Sites in Canada

It should not come as much of a surprise that the vast majority of Canada’s pilgrimage places and ancient sacred sites are associated with Native Canadians, known in that country as First Nations people. We have only been able to identify two that are not, and they are both in Quebec: St. Joseph’s Oratory and the Shrine of Ste.-Anne de-Beaupre.

This article will describe four Canadian pilgrimage sites in four different parts of the large country. Fortunately, the Trans-Canada highway is an excellent motorway that connects major cities from Atlantic to Pacific. If someone were going to book cheap car hire in Canada and then drive from one to the other, the journey would probably take at least a week, but in order to gain the benefits of visiting these sacred sites and healing places, it would be better to stretch the time longer.

At a great many of the pilgrimage places in Canada, petroglyphs, ancient rock carvings, can still be seen. In Peterborough, Ontario is a wall with over 900 carved images believed to date from 900 to 1400 c.e. They were found by an historian in 1924 after having been lost for centuries. One image is believed to represent a solar boat associated with shamans. Another is a fissure in the rock said to be an entrance to the underworld.

At the opposite side of the country, in Sproat Lake British Columbia are petroglyphs associated with the Nootka. These people whose lives depended on catching fish and hunting whales, and the rock carvings of stylized marine creatures were most likely used in magical functions in order to increase the good fortunes of whalers and fishermen.

A much more widely visited pilgrimage site is near Edmonton, Alberta at Lac Ste. Anne. For more than 100 years, First Nations people have been coming to the lake on July 26, the feast day of the mother of the Virgin Mary. As many as 40,000 faithful have been known to come and participate.

In Canada’s prairie, located between Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan is Little Manitou Lake, which early First Nations people called “the place of healing waters.” Legends say that medicine men once brought their patients to the lake to cured of their illnesses. Manitou Springs Mineral Spa was built there in 1987 and to this day people claim the waters are helpful to ease the pain of their arthritis and rheumatism. Mineral salts dissolved in the water make bathers float at the top, just as in the Dead Sea.