“New mammogram vans receive blessing from Musqueam elders: The BC Cancer Agency’s three new mobile units will travel to remote communities”
The Vancouver Sun (February 1, 2016)
In a special ceremony on Musqueam traditional territory Monday, two new BC Cancer Agency vans, designed to bring state-of-the art digital breast cancer screening to remote and aboriginal communities in B.C., were blessed and cleansed with cedar boughs, drumming and song.
It is extremely rare that a sacred spiritual ceremony would be performed with cameras in attendance, explained elder Thelma Stogan. “We don’t do it for show,” she said.
Thelma and her brother Arthur Stogan, traditional knowledge keepers of the Musqueam band, performed the ritual. Knowing how many lives cancer touches, and how many aboriginal communities around B.C. are in need, said Thelma, they wanted to do the blessing, even if it meant bending the rules of tradition just a little.