Coming home can be more than a change of address — it can be part of healing.

After decades away, Harley Eagle, Indigenous Cultural Safety Advisor for Michael Smith Health Research BC, returned to his homelands in Treaty 6 Territory, in what is now known as Saskatchewan.

In a new podcast, Harley shares what it’s been like to reconnect with the land and reflects on his own path towards reconciliation.

“This move back home is a part of my own healing and decolonizing journey and that of my family as well,” he says. “I want to restore connections. I want to be a part of the journey of healing that many of my relatives are on.”

Drawing on teachings like the medicine wheel, two-eyed seeing, and somatics (studying the body’s physical sensations), Harley offers insights on how health professionals and researchers can build respectful partnerships with Indigenous communities.

He explains that colonization shapes families, communities, and even our bodies — and why listening, reflection, and relationships matter.

“We can’t think [or] moralize this injustice away,” says Harley. “We have to feel it and know what it feels like to be in right relationship.”

Listen to Harley’s story

Download the podcast transcript.

Harley Eagle is of Dakota and Ojibway Indigenous ancestry and member of the Whitecap Dakota First Nations Reserve in Saskatchewan. After residing in the beautiful K’omoks Territory on Vancouver Island for 30 years, he returned to his homelands in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Treaty 6 Territory.

Harley holds a master’s degree in conflict analysis and management. He is an Indigenous cultural safety and humility consultant and facilitator. For 30 years, he has been a seasoned trainer and facilitator, restorative justice and conflict management practitioner, and Indigenous rights advocate.

His workshops explore and build a foundation of understanding that includes an Indigenous perspective on colonization, addressing systemic racism, and trauma-informed practice, which are major components of Indigenous cultural safety. His gatherings strive to support truth and reconciliation action, decolonization, and connecting, recalling, and reclaiming Indigenous understanding of life.

For more information, visit Harley Eagle Facilitation.