After years of planning and building, a new Indigenous elders lodge is about to open near the Rocky Mountain community of Grande Cache, Alta.
“It feels good to be here,” said Winston Delorme, surveying progress on the 17,200-square-foot Kikinow Elders Lodge.
“When we first got here there used to be a road up here and it was just bush,” said Delorme. Now it’s “almost a full, operating lodge here — for our people.”
The idea for the lodge, located on the Victor Lake Co-operative, an Indigenous land holding on the north boundary of Grande Cache, 430 kilometres west of Edmonton, was first conceived in 2018 and construction got underway in 2023.
Applications are being accepted this month from Indigenous people in the area who want to live in the 14-bed facility.
Victor Lake is one of the six Indigenous co-operatives and enterprises in the Grande Cache area.
Delorme, a Victor Lake community leader, points to the building’s half-moon design — with its teepee and fireplace at the heart of the lodge, smudge area, crafting room and community kitchen — as examples of what makes the $15-million dollar project unique.
Kikinow means “our home” in Cree and Delorme said the goal is to create a non-institutional place in the community where elders can age comfortably and safely.
“They get to come and go as they please. It’s not a jail for them,” he said.
“If they want to go to town, they go to town, if they want to go home for the night — back to their old home — that’s up to them. That’s the biggest thing is they’re not kept.”
Hilda Hallock, a 57-year-old Victor Lake community member, said she can see herself eventually living at the lodge.
Looking out the balcony of the space, Hallock sees the same mountain views that she’s had all her life.
“I believe we are the land and the land is us,” she said.
“This building will allow me to continue to live that life as I age, to maintain that connection and not be removed from it.”
It’s a place that Hallock said will free her of life’s “everyday stresses,” like ensuring her pipes don’t freeze and she has enough wood chopped to last the winter.
Funding for the project is coming from the federal and provincial governments, the Municipal District of Greenview and other municipal regional partners with help from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, said Shyam Menon, director of portfolio management with The Evergreens Foundation.
Tour a unique Indigenous elders lodge in northwestern Alberta
The not-for-profit management company will run the seniors living facility.
“This project is a unique partnership between a housing management body and an Indigenous organization,” Menon said, “bringing much needed culturally appropriate housing and care to the elders in the region.”
Staff with Scott Builders Inc. are continuing work on infrastructure, landscaping and the interior of Kikinow Elders Lodge with residents expected to move in later this summer.
Shirley Delorme, president of the Victor Lake Co-operative, said opening up applications for residents makes it feel real.
Delorme said she expects the lodge to be a special place for the whole community.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of involvement with the younger generation,” she said. “This is going to be a common place where they can come and learn from the elders.”
