Teaching Lodge

Thanks to a very generous donation from Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada, TUNM was able to purchase a custom-built teaching lodge for the use of our ministry and the community.

The purpose of the lodge is to have a place where the community can gather in a more traditional setting to experience ceremonies, teachings, reconciliation gatherings and other events.

The challenge of course, was how to design a lodge that can be used in various places including on pavement, over top of geothermal heating and cooling systems as well as indoors. Thankfully, David Lundberg of Sewn Home Designs was able to imagine a creative and innovative design for the lodge which allows it to be set up without requiring anything to be put into the ground. He also designed the lodge using PVC piping which he sanded and painted to look like wood so that we would not have to deal with the challenge of finding saplings for the frame in an urban setting.

The Lodge was first set up at the United Church of Canada`s General Council 43 in Oshawa and is now permanently housed at Five Oaks Education and Retreat Centre outside Paris, ON.