September 2, 2025, Garry Samuel Sault made his final journey. To many in Ontario and across Canada, Garry will be remembered as a revered Elder of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

For me, he was a teacher, a healer, a mentor and a friend. He was also a consummate  story teller. I first met Garry Sault ten years ago at a Youth Leadership Conference sponsored by Ontario Nature (ON) held at Geneva Park on Lake Simcoe. In the prequel to the event, I was working on setting up a nature trail, shirt off, soaking up the morning sun.

I had noticed Garry and his wife Tena cooking up some concoction for their medicinal wilds session. Garry suddenly appeared beside me and touched a red lesion on my shoulder. “What’s this?” he asked.

Taken aback and surprised, I told him it was a suspect skin cancer spot removed by my dermatologist. He then proceeded, unasked, to apply a salve to the many spots that had been treated. Part of my legacy of paddling half-naked along Ontario canoe routes for twenty-five years. The areas on my skin were sore and red when Garry applied the salve, The next morning, they were pink and painless.

I went back to him at the end of the course and asked, “How did you make that salve?” He handed me a large jar of salve and said, “Come back next year.” I was hooked. The next year at the Conference I arranged my sessions so that I could attend his on my breaks. I sat with the students while Garry combined history and the indigenous knowledge of plants in a mesmerizing story. We then went out on the grounds to gather comfrey root, and plantain leaves to add to the pots of beeswax and sunflower oil that Tena had been stirring on two Coleman camping stoves.

The plants were simmered in the oil, then later scooped out. While they were cooking, Garry shared his knowledge of the history of his people and his love of the natural wild world.The students were spellbound. It was like watching children sitting at the feet of their grandparents being mesmerized by stories of their journeys.

When the plants had been sieved out of the pot, the oil was poured into the melted beeswax and the mixtures were left to cool. The students came back in the afternoon to collect their jars of salve. I now had the formula! “Yes,” Garry said, “but it changes when I add St. John’s Wort. Come back next year.” And so began the teaching. Arouse curiosity based on street creds; hook the student with the concept of gaining knowledge learned over time and experience rather than a quick fix answer. I loved it.

At night, around the campfire, Garry would engage the students with wondrous and hilarious stories of Nanabozo, Raven and Coyote .There were more serious stories about Gitche Manitou and Old Woman that spoke deeply to me. These were the sacred mythologies of our First Peoples.

In adult times together, Garry would tell the history of the Peacemaker and the Wampum Belts and the many, many Treaties broken. Over the years we worked at the conference together, Garry expanded my knowledge of the history of our First Peoples. He had escaped the horrors of the residential schools and the infamous “Sixties Scoop” when his family escaped from Ontario to Alberta, and then back again when the westward sweep had passed. He was able to keep the stories that were lost to so many.

When the pandemic hit, Ontario Nature had to cancel the Youth Conferences and YMCA Geneva Park was subsequently sold. I stayed in touch with Garry, visiting him at his home in Hagersville, and meeting his and Teena’s family. He took me for a tour around the lands of the Mississaugas of the New Credit  where every driveway was marked with orange shirts for the missing children of a State and Church sponsored program of child abuse and cultural genocide in the name of Queen and Country.

Garry Sault saved my life and opened my eyes. Remembered with love.

• Photo from RHB Anderson Funeral Homes Ltd.