Circé + Medée Was Never Built Alone.
Circé + Medée began with Andrée Noye, a love of plants, and a stubborn belief that West Pubnico deserved better access to thoughtful, grounded care. What started as one woman building an apothecary and community space quickly became more than one person could, or should, carry alone.
In year one, Cassandra Francis stepped in and took over making Circé + Medée’s botanical products, giving Andrée room to keep building without burning herself into the ground. In year two, Nadine joined and brought the structure the growing business needed, taking on administration, tightening the systems, and helping steer the ship through rougher water.
Today, Circé + Medée is shaped by all three women. Different strengths, different roles, and one shared commitment to making care feel useful, human, and close to home. The name carries that same spirit. Circe and Medea, figures from classical mythology, were healers, herbalists, and women of deep knowledge. Complicated by history, perhaps, but undeniably powerful.
Now Circé + Medée brings many practitioners, plant medicine, education, hands-on care, and an apothecary together in one place, rooted in a corner of Nova Scotia that has always known how to look after its own.
Andrée Noye
Founding Partner · Clinical Director · Program Lead
Her practice is now focused on clinical herbalism, drawing from Traditional Western Herbalism, Ayurvedic principles, traditional knowledge, and scientific inquiry. She has a particular interest in Nova Scotian flora, bioregional medicine, and at-risk medicinal plants. As Clinical Director, she oversees consultation standards, formulation, product integrity, client care, research, and education, and is pursuing voluntary registration with the Herbalist Association of Nova Scotia.
At the centre of her work is something much simpler than the credentials suggest: helping people understand plants, ask better questions, and feel more connected to their own care and the place they live.
Andrée Noye, MA, founded Circé + Medée with a love of plants and a stubborn belief that thoughtful, grounded care should be easier to find close to home. She leads the centre’s clinical herbal practice, educational programming, and long-term direction while continuing to work directly with clients and teach the plant knowledge at the heart of Circé + Medée.
Andrée holds a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from Royal Roads University and completed Naturopath-Herbalist training at the Académie de massothérapie et d’orthothérapie in Quebec. Her continuing education includes more than 2,100 hours of study in herbal medicine, anatomy, physiology, nutrition, aromatherapy, and related fields, along with the Herbal Academy’s Clinical Herbalist Path and advanced clinical skills training.
Medée has grown beyond its earliest stage. Cassandra helps hold the daily life of the apothecary and the care of the physical space; Andrée leads the centre’s clinical, educational, and long-term vision; and Nadine helps build the operational structure underneath it all. It is not the most visible part of a wellness centre, but it is one of the reasons the visible parts are able to exist.
Nadine lives in East Pubnico, where she and her husband, Eric, have a beautiful blueberry farm. Eric has also become something of an unofficial extended member of the Circé + Medée family, lending his skills and practical know-how to more small projects around the centre than we could probably count.
Nadine is the person who helps make growth possible without letting the machinery behind the growth fall apart.
Nadine Korhonen
Operations Partner · Business Administrator
Nadine joined Circé + Medée in its second year and quickly became an essential part of the centre’s ability to keep growing.
Much of Nadine’s work happens behind the scenes, which means that, as she is doing it well, most people never see it. She oversees the administrative and operational work that turns ideas into something a small organization can actually carry: applications, permits, insurance, documentation, follow-up, systems, timelines, and the many practical details that keep a growing centre moving forward.
Nadine brings decades of corporate experience to Circé + Medée, including a background in project management. She has a natural ability to see the larger system while still paying attention to the small steps required to make it work. Where an idea may begin as a conversation around the table, Nadine is often the person asking what needs to happen next, what paperwork is required, who needs to be contacted, and what has quietly fallen through the cracks.
Her role has become particularly important as Circé +
Cassandra Francis
Apothecary Partner · Community Herbalist · Wellness Practitioner
Cassandra joined Circé + Medée in its first year and quickly became one of the reasons it could keep growing. As Partner, Apothecary Lead, and Wellness Practitioner, she holds much of the day-to-day life of the apothecary, from making our botanical products and managing production to supporting the people who walk through the door.
She is also training in community herbalism under Andrée, building her knowledge through hands-on apothecary work, product preparation, workshops, and clinical observation. Cassandra is especially drawn to the practical, everyday ways plants can support comfort, ritual, connection, and community wellbeing.
Alongside her apothecary work, Cassandra offers energy and restorative practices at the centre. Her approach is warm, intuitive, and grounded, with a natural ability to make peoplefeel welcome without making a production of it.
As a partner, Cassandra helps hold the relational heart of Circé + Medée. She is part maker, part practitioner, part steady hand, and a big reason the place feels the way it does.
Land Acknowledgement
We live and work on land that remembers.
Pubnico, first settled by Acadians in 1653 and resettled by returning Acadian families after the Deportation, remains a place where that resilience is still visible in the language, families, fishing traditions, and culture of the community today.
We honour both of these histories without pretending they are the same.
We acknowledge the Mi’kmaq as the original people and continuing stewards of Mi’kma’ki. We honour the long relationship between Mi’kmaq and Acadian peoples in this region, and we recognize that living together on Treaty land carries responsibilities that did not expire with the signatures of our ancestors.
For Circé + Medée, acknowledgement means more than naming the land beneath our feet. It means paying attention to where we are, whose knowledge came before us, what histories shaped this place, and what it means to care for land, plants, water, culture, and one another now.
We are grateful to make our home in Kespukwitk.
We live on Treaty land.
We live on land that remembers.
Circé + Medée is located in West Pubnico, in Kespukwitk, the southwestern district of Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.
Mi’kma’ki is governed by the Peace and Friendship Treaties made between the Mi’kmaq and the British Crown in the eighteenth century. These were agreements of peace, friendship, coexistence, and shared responsibility. They were not treaties in which the Mi’kmaq surrendered their land or resources. Those Treaties remain in effect today, and we are all Treaty people.
Here in southwest Nova Scotia, that history is especially close.
Long before this place was called Pubnico, Mi’kmaq knew this harbour and the surrounding land. The name itself is rooted in the Mi’kmaw Pogomkook, a name associated with winter eel fishing in the harbour. When French settlers began establishing communities in Acadia, the Mi’kmaq welcomed them, shared knowledge of the land and climate, and helped those early communities adapt and survive. Relationships of trade, friendship, alliance, and kinship became part of the story of Acadia.
The Acadian people would go on to experience displacement, deportation, return, and the long work of rebuilding.
