Victoria social worker Leah Wilson finds healing through bond with crows

Leah Wilson, a Red River Métis social worker from Victoria, was left with chronic stress, anxiety and lower‑back pain after a workplace injury in 2023. The injury led her to withdraw from daily life. Seeking recovery, she attended the Cedar Song Centre for Wild Belonging, a land‑based healing retreat in the Highlands, where she worked with clinical psychologist Stéphanie Marchal. Through ceremony, rewilding practices and time spent on the land, Wilson reconnected with nature. While walking in James Bay with her dog Freya, she formed an unlikely companionship with a flock of neighbourhood crows. She says the birds helped her “remember a way of being that felt ancient, instinctive, and deeply familiar… a part of myself that felt wild, curious, connected, and free.” Over the following year the crow relationship provided comfort, a sense of familiarity and aided her emotional and physical recovery.