Orca Lelum is a first-of-its-kind wellness center located in Lantzville, BC that “offers medically supervised withdrawal support, mental health crisis supports, and holistic live-in wellness for youth aged 12-18 that are residents of British Columbia.”
Orca Lelum was founded by the Stz’minus, Snaw naw as, and the Kwakwaka’wakw Nations is unique in targeting youth rather than adults, and in making Traditional Knowledge and culture central to recovery.
“If we’re not still the only, we were the first of our kind in Canada for specifically targeting youth,” said Dimitri Kroger, a counselor at Orca Lelum. “It will be the first time detox services have been offered specifically to young Indigenous people in the province.”
According to the website, “ten of the beds will be reserved for short-term detox and stabilization, while another 10 beds will support young people with addiction services through a 10-week, holistic, live-in and culture-based healing program.”
Orca Lelum also tries “to help these kids reconnect with the family culture that was lost a generation or two ago,” Kroger added. “We have a full cultural team.”
The activities that Orca Lelum offers changes depending on the need of the community at the time. “We had someone from Stz’minus Band helping two of our youth making regalia for ceremonies” Kroger continued.
“Our job is to make sure that the youth are safe and have someone to talk to,” said Kroger. “We’ve got kids out there struggling with issues with family; either their grandparents or someone in the family was a residential school survivor. You have these people who are so damaged from what’s happened to them that they have trouble supporting their kids. Then those kids have kids and now those kids are in that same locked cycle.”
Orca Lelum takes 3-5 youth for a 10-week course. “I think the need is so high that we are, realistically, the tiniest drop in the bucket in terms of what needs to be done,” Kroger said.
In 2025 drug overdoses overtook car accidents as the number one killer of people aged 10-18 in BC and indigenous people are six times more likely to die from an overdoes the any other group in BC.
Members of the public can be supportive by “just being friendly. Offering a smile and just being kind goes a really long way,” Kroger said.
Kwumut Lelum has a similar wellness center for Indigenous adults and, as the parent company of Orca Lelum, operate many of the same programs .
