For two decades, the Haskayne Wilderness Retreat has been transforming future business leaders through a unique immersive experience in the Canadian Rockies. This week-long course at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business blends Indigenous wisdom, ecological awareness, and contemplative practices to forge a new kind of leadership mindset. Limited to just 20 students per session, participants connect deeply with nature, learn from Indigenous Elders, and develop lasting bonds with fellow students. As graduates attest, the retreat’s impact extends far beyond the classroom, teaching essential lessons in empathy, resilience, and sustainable leadership that shape careers for years to come.

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A Change of Pace

In today’s fast-paced, always-on world, many leaders struggle to find the time to slow down and process their experiences effectively. And yet, the most skillful and agile leaders are deeply connected to a sense of purpose. The Haskayne Wilderness Retreat is one way the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada is shaping the leaders of tomorrow.

The one-week block course is limited to 20 students per session and offers a novel and hybrid approach to leadership and sustainable development. It integrates familiar post-secondary educational approaches with transformative learning—including Indigenous pedagogies, land-based learning, and a broad range of contemplative and relational practices—to create a deeply impactful experience.

The undergraduate course is typically held at the University of Calgary BioGeoScience Institute, while the MBA-level courses have been hosted at various locations and retreat centres across the Canadian Rockies.

In some ways, the Haskayne Wilderness Retreat has a different arc from traditional business school programmes. In typical courses, students attend lessons and lectures before taking an exam at the end of the semester to demonstrate what they’ve learned. But in the Wilderness Retreat, the ‘test’ comes first.

Students are placed in an entirely new cultural space and immersed in new ways of relating to the land. Such unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable experiences can be challenging. But the most important challenge is making sense of these experiences afterward. Each student will learn different lessons from the same ‘test’.

“The Haskayne Adventure Leadership programming stands out as one of the most unique leadership programmes offered by business schools across the country,” says Dean Gina Grandy, Haskayne School of Business. “Even after twenty years, the Wilderness Retreat remains novel, leveraging Calgary’s ideal location for place-based learning in a way that few other schools can match. It is a transformative learning experience that is second to none.”

The retreat revolves around one central question: What kind of leadership is needed for a flourishing future? There are many answers, but one common thread shared by Indigenous Elders and sustainability scholars alike is this: a shared ethos of deep connectedness offers the most viable foundation for human and planetary flourishing.

Transformative Connections

Participants develop an ecocentric awareness, in which students directly experience themselves as being part of a larger, interconnected whole. Students are invited to critically reflect on their responsibilities and roles as Treaty people at a time when Canadians are grappling with the painful legacies of colonisation and the possibilities of reconciliation.

The retreat offers three distinct experiential learning opportunities:

Connecting to Nature. At the retreat, students deepen their understanding of, and sense of relationship with, the natural world in ways that may be unfamiliar. Facilitators draw from land-based traditions such as ecosystem dynamics, ecological relationship patterns and layers of birdsong, to help students not only learn in nature, but also from nature.

Connecting to Indigenous Pedagogies. Students spend intimate time with Elders and knowledge keepers from the Îyârhe Nakoda Nations, Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot) Confederacy, and other Treaty Seven Nations. Representatives of these nations have been central members of the faculty team since the course first began.

These Elders and knowledge keepers share cultural teachings about learning from, and building relationships with, nature and the more-than-human world. They draw from a wide range of learning approaches, including ceremony and story, to share culturally-grounded perspectives on leadership, sustainability, and right relations.

Connecting to Self. Students are introduced to lessons and practices they can use to navigate uncertainty with increased centredness, compassion, and self-awareness:

Contemplative practices include a daily rhythm of meditation, reflection, centring, and mind-body integration, bringing an attitude of mindful awareness to every aspect of the course. Above all, students can reflect on their own deeper sense of calling and purpose.

Relational practices involve daily opportunities for students to listen deeply and speak authentically and courageously in ways often modeled by Indigenous faculty. As a result, they learn about one another in ways that are seldom possible in the regular classroom.

Lasting Change

MBA students are expected to read and critically engage with a number of books and articles; they must submit written assignments before the retreat begins. Undergraduates are expected to keep reflective journals on their learning during the retreat, and may be graded on their participation in small-group discussions.

Both graduate and undergraduate students are required to produce final papers in which they reflect on the core questions of the course. But their learning doesn’t end there. In some ways, it’s just the beginning.

Many students describe their retreat experience as life-changing. But what changes? Above all, students seem to experience an expansion in perspective and the frames of reference by which they make meaning. They come to understand themselves, the world around them, their capacity for leadership influence, and their desire to make meaningful contributions in new ways.

Integrating such insights, learning, and perspectives into their daily lives is only possible through ongoing practice and action over time, and such integration does indeed take place.

“My experience with the Wilderness Retreat 20 years ago was an essential part of my personal and professional development,” says Christine Gillies, 2004 Haskayne Wilderness Retreat graduate and Chief Product and Marketing Officer, Blackline Safety. “These experiences taught me lessons in community building, empathy and resilience that I draw on to this day.”

Students consistently highlight time spent with Indigenous Elders and time spent learning from the land as the two most impactful aspects of the course. But two additional aspects are frequently mentioned:

The chance to slow down. In business settings, we’re often looking for the new and novel, and doing so at a fast pace. The Retreat teaches students to explore simpler ways of doing things and carve out time for reflection. It also allows them to mute outside distractions and immerse themselves in the present so they can process even the most uncomfortable feelings, thoughts, and questions.

The opportunity to build authentic relationships. During the retreat, students form lasting bonds as they participate in novel experiences, embrace vulnerability, and set aside cultural and personal differences. The strong community built over the course of the retreat often continues for years to come as students remain in each other’s lives, meet up regularly, and support each other personally and professionally.

For MBA students, these connections are particularly profound. The graduate experience can be quite isolating as students balance the demands of their academic and professional lives. This is particularly true in the post-pandemic era, which has perpetuated a feeling of loneliness among many people.

The unique blend of Indigenous and Western perspectives and pedagogies used in the Haskayne Wilderness Retreat creates a truly transformative experience, preparing a new generation of leaders to adapt, thrive and bring their own positive transformations to tomorrow’s organisations and industries.