Photo: Around 20 years ago, Swampy Cree and York Factory First Nation member Danielle Searancke moved to Squamish to work with race cars, but it’s also where she began developing a niche healing journey.
By Ina Pace
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Squamish Chief
A Swampy Cree woman from Squamish, who works to help people through grief and loss, will be sharing her journey and mentorship in a docuseries on APTN this September.
“I healed in these mountains. I was always in awe of the mountains.”
Around 20 years ago, Swampy Cree and York Factory First Nation member Danielle Searancke moved to Squamish to work with race cars, but it’s also where she began developing a niche healing journey.
She is now a medium and mentor, or spiritual entrepreneur, who focuses on healing through spiritual reconnection.
In 2023, Searancke’s work turned heads from Vancouver-based, Indigenous female-led production company Wapanatahk Media, and now she has her own 10-episode docuseries Squamish Medium commissioned, premiering on Sept. 14 on APTN.
“I said (to the producers) ‘I would like to focus on the healing of mediumship because I think we’re used to performing and sensationalizing it, but the root of mediumship is really rooted in compassion, and grief and empathy,’” Searancke recalled.
What started as a podcast in 2017—a “development journal” relaying her “vulnerabilities” in learning mediumship—became her online Spirit School.
Spirit School is a platform Searancke uses to curate an international community around spiritual reconnection with loved ones (including pets) in times of grief and loss, which may also involve disenfranchised lived experience. Her practice includes hosting conferences and retreats.
Searancke said she built her confidence during her time as a wisdom gatherer among residential school survivors and Elders, who were forming what would become the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA). She said she learnt a lot from them about reconnection teachings, and traditional protocols.
Searancke is herself an intergenerational survivor of the residential school system.
Her fascination behind mediumship stemmed from watching Sylvia Browne on TV as a kid.
The Squamish Chief reached out to Searancke to find out more about her motives and her methods, and what viewers might expect to see in her show.
What follows is a version of that conversation edited for length and clarity.
The Squamish Chief: How did you become a wisdom gatherer for what became the FNHA, and what was it like to leave to pursue your own mediumship?
Danielle Searancke: I wrote to them because I had an experience where I got to witness the fact that culture heals. I didn’t realize connecting to your culture could heal, for example, a lifelong addiction. Because I wrote that letter, these people reached out to me saying “join us.”
I got to work with some of the most innovative Indigenous leaders this province has to offer. We invited chiefs and delegates from every community in B.C. so I got to experience wellness at the centre of everything.
It was really hard to leave to pursue mediumship, but my passion for mediumship has been lifelong. It’s a lifestyle. It takes you back to times where things were slower and more intentional, and I am so passionate about the healing journey that accompanies it. By developing yourself, you have no choice but to heal yourself.
Once I started serving Squamish at my kitchen table in 2014, I just found so much fulfillment in the work. Even though it’s centred around grief and loss, it’s very uplifting and inspirational.
Q: Considering mediumship is a niche practice, how do you engage with skeptics?
A: I’ve never felt like it was my responsibility to convince anyone of this. My work doesn’t attract a lot of skeptics. It attracts a lot of people who are curious about their own spirituality.
I just tell people to stay curious. What would happen to your life if you did believe, and you did open yourself to experiences?
Q: In what ways do you engage with those who are curious?
A: Mediumship works best when people are open and they have a need. I bring through information that only (the client) could validate. But that doesn’t mean you can’t connect for people who might be a little bit more nervous. I would never pass on reconciliation messages or advice about your future until we establish evidence, and both people feel confident that we are connected to their spiritual loved one.
I do this in a very compassionate way, and I understand my work doesn’t quite intersect, but it’s open to all religious backgrounds, and all belief forms. Everybody needs (mediumship) because everybody experiences loss in this life.
Q: What are some common misunderstandings about mediumship?
A: I think the biggest misunderstanding is that you have to be chosen to be able to do this. This is a practice that is energy-based. Energy does not have biases. It works off of intention, and anyone can do what I do. We all have access to the spirit world and our ancestors.
I’m trying to make people need a medium less. By giving people courage to live a life in which you don’t have regrets, and you don’t need a medium to reconcile the past.
Q: What aspect of your work does Squamish Medium exemplify, and how is that captured visually?
A: The show really covers my reconnection journey that continues to my grandmother’s family and traditional territory. It shows a lot about the balancing act that I have of being a mom of two kids, and an entrepreneur, and a healer. Somebody who’s always developing.
I get to do group and private readings on every episode. There’s so much feeling that takes place between and beneath the words, so that was something they did try to capture in the film. But the film is visually beautiful because it’s half done in Squamish and it’s half done in First Nations communities across Canada.
I would love to thank APTN and Wapanatahk Media.
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Squamish Medium premieres Sept. 14 in English weekly on APTN from 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT., and weekly on Sept. 2 in Cree from 9:30 p.m. ET/ 6:30 p.m. PT on APTN Languages.
Both English and Cree versions of Squamish Medium will be available for same-day streaming on APTN+.