Here you can drink ‘lemonade’ from sumac trees and maple sap as a spring tonic. When she purchased it in 1997, Dr. Katherine Willow N.D. saw a place for personal healing, learning sustainable skills and protecting the earth’s natural beauty. Since 1997, Carp Ridge EcoWellness Centre has hosted a thriving natural health clinic and later North America’s first Forest School; now these experiences and information are being applied to help people learn, grow and move towards wholeness through programs and retreats for all ages, clinic services, healing stays at the bed and breakfast and lovely hiking trails with spots for meditation and reflection. The centre is eco-conscious in a practical and non-rigid way. Buildings and our daily lives are environmentally friendly to the best of our ability. You’ll see sustainable practices in use, from permaculture gardens, geothermal heating and solar panels to straw bale cabins and composting toilets. Better yet, you can take workshops and learn to apply these principles in your own life!

Holistic health is one of the foundations of the Carp Ridge EcoWellness Centre. And when we start to live in a healthier way, we end up helping our environment. Using fewer chemicals, buying (or even better, growing) organic foods and favouring products that are locally made from natural materials all decrease our collective toxic load.

When we reverse chronic conditions with natural therapies, we become less dependant on pharmaceuticals that enter the water supply and affect our hormones and those of the creatures downstream.

More importantly, as we heal our emotional wounds and become able to turn our minds and emotions consistently to the positive, we contribute a renewed sense of hope and optimism to the mind field that we share as a species.

A mind field that used to be a spiritual concept which is now a scientific reality!

We have enough resources to solve most of the earth’s problems; what is most needed is vision and political will. It has been documented that when a certain percentage of people in an area meditate on a regular basis, the crime rate noticeably decreases. Imagine what could happen as more of us embrace a healing journey for body, mind, spirit and community

In summary, the core principles of Carp Ridge EcoWellness Centre revolve around healing: our selves, our families, our communities, our world.

Our team knows that life is cyclical with its evolutions and involutions, living and dying, learning and growing—people make mistakes, but they can also make amends.  We have come to a point where more people enjoy an unprecedented quality of life than ever before.  At the same time we are destroying our oceans, forests, other species and the topsoil.

We have the opportunity now to apply known solutions that allow all beings to flourish: humans, animals, plants and the environment.  These solutions create interesting, meaningful jobs for young people while moving us toward a better balance.  Carp Ridge Ecowellness Centre is passionate about finding and sharing innovative technologies that solve our biggest problems.

But we can’t do it alone.  We encourage people with backgrounds, experience and interest in healing and sustainable practices to consider becoming a member in further developing, improving and growing our Centre.

We join many people world-wide in this hopeful effort, moving toward that cumulative tipping point where the goal of sustainability, of having a healthy future, becomes a priority.