Forest Bathing in the Heart of Kananaskis: A Colorful Mountain Story

This weekend I joined some of my colleagues on our team in Kananaskis for a therapist retreat — to rest my nervous system, to bathe in beauty, to remember what community feels like.

Driving west on Highway 1, the city fell away and the horizon rose into peaks. Every curve on Highway 40 drew me deeper into the valley, revealing new waves of green mountainsides speckled with autumn gold.

Kananaskis is a holy place for prayer and healing, and I could feel that long before I stepped out of the car. It’s a northern oasis where people come to heal their bodies and minds from stress — to breathe, to move, to be where the mountains do the listening.

Every trail offers an invitation. Kananaskis opens people’s minds to the beauty of the natural world, gently pointing our attention toward what’s always been here: the mountains, the trees, the animals, the pulse of the earth itself.

Only an hour’s drive from Calgary, Kananaskis is a popular destination for climbers, hikers, and mountain lovers. Yet beneath its trails lies a much older story — one that still hums beneath the surface.

I googled and learned the name Kananaskis was given over 150 years ago by a white explorer who named the region after a Cree warrior said to have survived an axe blow to the head. The name has been loosely translated as “meeting of the waters” or “one who is grateful.”

But long before that name appeared on maps, this valley was sacred to the Îyârhe Nakoda — the Stoney Nakoda people — who gathered here and cared for these lands for generations. The valley provided their food and medicine, their tobacco, sweetgrass, cedar, and sage.

Standing at a lookout point on a walk, I thought about that — how healing has become something we pay for. How these same mountains now look down on luxury lodges and golf greens. It’s a jarring kind of beauty — one that holds both memory and loss in the same frame. But the land has not forgotten. She still freely offers healing.

After a restful night of sleep in the elegant Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge, I was grateful to gather in the morning with people who dedicated their lives to serving others and offering their gifts as therapists and healers.

As a group, we ate breakfast then walked outside and sat on the grass to begin a guided activity — an hour of forest bathing. One of our hosts led us in an offering of prayer and a smudge bowl.

She told us how the trees are all connected under the surface, how they send energy to ailing roots when a tree is sick or dying, how we are all supported even when we don’t see it.

She shared teachings about the practice of smudging, and at the end, she said to pass on participating in the group smudge bowl if we were on our moon time. When I inquired, because I was bleeding at the time, I was told I was believed to be too powerful, because I was already deeply connected to the earth.

I understood it was a teaching passed on to her from elders. Still, being excluded made me close my eyes before the tears could form and fall. We all have trauma to face, individual and collective.

I listened to my mind and body until I could sense how I felt deep inside.

I recalled a page from the book I am writing:

My body moves in waves.

My heart is an organ of muscle and tissue with four hollow chambers and a three-layered wall.

It pumps blood with electrical impulses that set the pace.

I feel the spark of energy.

A gentle tap rises from my chest.

My heartbeat connects me to the world.

Sometimes something in my environment signals distress and speeds up the current.

If my heart races too fast, it can’t fill between the beats.

I feel pressure pounding in me.

And I love the wild thump of my heart.

Vibration is information.

Every change is a new signal of what I know or what I need.

My body is built to respond.

I sense the pulse inside my chest, and I remember:

I am energy.

My heart was drumming a song of fire and flame. My body didn’t need to create a new life this month, so I had extra blood to shed. Blood is power. Blood is energy. Blood is life.

I leaned against the tree where I had settled, and I sent my energy into the roots and sent my love to all those who sat around us.

I didn’t believe I could be too powerful, but I could still use my power for good.

When I was finally ready to open my eyes, I looked up and saw the branches above me reaching out like the blood vessels that nourish my organs and tissues. And they looked like mountains.

I took out my phone to capture the image for the chapter on the heart in my book on emotions in the body. And I saw another guest at the retreat smile at me. In that simple act, I felt love words wouldn’t do justice.

I wrapped myself tightly in a blanket thoughtfully brought by the host (because I came to the mountains totally unprepared) and I stayed there while some walked to find other places for their hour of forest bathing.

I looked around and saw another tree with branches and leaves like the lungs and snapped another picture for another chapter.

I breathed in deeply and gave my lungs new oxygen to give to my heart and blood and body.

I wandered in my mind and listened to the voices of the wanderers around me.

I started to write my thoughts on the blank pages of the journal with a marker, both lovingly provided by the hosts. I moved my hands with my emotions.

And then I marveled at the adventures of the squirrel who came to visit the tree like me.

The squirrel ran through the tree branches raining down tiny bits of dry bark all around me. It came so close and paused above me many times to look down at me.

I pulled out my phone to catch a few photos and found myself playing a game of peek-a-boo with the little creature. Laughter warmed me. I smiled and remembered: I am power. I am energy. I am life.

I finished my journaling and sketched a ridiculous drawing of the tree and the squirrel and me (included below for your entertainment).

We closed with a sharing circle and went inside for a delicious salad bar lunch. We chatted and connected over stories and oracle card readings.

I spent my free time warming up in the outdoor hot tub, then joined the group for dinner where we shared a meal and witnessed the first snowfall of the season.

After eating, I stood outside by a fire with my colleague enjoying the cold snow falling and hot flame rising. Our conversation reminded me of the paradox of the invisible struggles we bring from home when we go to work or even to retreat.

We then benefited from another guided activity — a yoga class where we could release our tension and reconnect with our bodies.

Our night culminated in a twilight soak in the abundant hot, warm, and cold spa tubs, steam rooms, and saunas of the Nordic Spa.

I returned to my room at midnight a bit like Cinderella coming home from the ball – naked and hopeful and grieving.

I felt the cries of those who had been displaced.

I was privileged to be here. To have a car to drive, time to book off, a partner to care for our children at home, a business, and money to stay here for a weekend.

I researched and learned Kananaskis is owned and administered by the province of Alberta as a series of provincial parks. Profits from the lodge and spa currently go to the private companies who lease the land for undisclosed amounts.

The Stoney Nakoda people lived among these ridges long before survey lines divided them into provincial parks and resort leases.

In These Mountains Are Our Sacred Places, Chief John Snow writes that the mountains are living relatives — guardians of spirit, teachers of humility. Indigenous people climbed these mountaintops to pray. They came to hunt, to dream, to listen, to remember who they were in relation to the land.

I couldn’t shake the thought that perhaps it’s time — time to give the land back to the people who cared for it for generations before it was taken.

It made me wonder what it might mean to restore Kananaskis as a place of peace and healing accessible to all people — a place of truth and reconciliation — not just for travelers and tourists, but for the people whose prayers were first woven into its soil.

The next morning, we moved as a group through seven animals in a profound 7 Sacred Indigenous Teachings Yoga class honoring the traditional Indigenous values: humility, respect, courage, honesty, truth, wisdom, and love.

The longer I listened, the more the mountains themselves felt like mirrors — showing me not only serenity but also responsibility.

Truth and reconciliation are needed here — between peoples, between cultures, between humans and the earth that sustains us. I believe truth begins in the body — in the way we relate to the cells beneath our skin. A single moment of unconditional love can reorganize cells into harmony.

When I drove away after a goodbye lunch and walk, I carried more than memories of the forest and meaningful conversations. I carried a quiet promise — to move mountains with my words and make my own writing a place of healing accessible to all people.

Author

Carol Korenowski is the owner and founder of Therapy Alberta. In 2025, she surrendered her psychologist title to become a writer and speaker on emotions, trauma, and the mind-body connection.

Source

Chief John Snow. (1977). These Mountains Are Our Sacred Places: The Story of the Stoney Indians. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. [University of Calgary Digital Collections](https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/archive/These-mountains-are-our-sacred-places--the-story-of-the-Stoney-Indians-2R3BF1SF8PWB5.html)

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