Tag: Pre-Contact Ontario

Sweat lodges were more than places of heat and cleansing—they were sites of transformation, healing, and connection for the Wendat people of southern Ontario. Archaeological evidence reveals these structures—some built within longhouses, others partially underground—as vital spaces where ritual, medicine, and community converged. Rooted in an animistic worldview and refined through centuries of practice, sweat lodges offered both physical renewal and spiritual communion in pre-contact Wendake.