A smudging ceremony at the Barrie-Simcoe Emergency Services Campus that was initially planned to take place in early 2020 will happen Thursday.
The Barrie-Simcoe Emergency Services Campus, located on Fairview Road, became the new Barrie Police Service and Simcoe County Paramedic Services headquarters in early 2020.
As it was built on the ancestral lands of the Huron-Wendat and the Anishinaabeg, a smudging ceremony was planned, but it was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Smudging ceremonies are traditionally done to cleanse negative energy and provide healing and purifying to a space or individual,” Barrie police noted in a news release.
The ceremony will take place Thursday at 1 p.m. in the Barrie-Simcoe Emergency Services Campus Community Room. It will be performed by Elder Jeff Monague, former chief of Beausoleil First Nation. He will perform the ceremony with a bald eagle fan with feathers that were gifted to the Barrie Police Service by Freedom Falconry.
