Mine is lilacs, because there was a lilac bush at the bus stop that I used to wait at with my mom when I was a kid, it was my school bus stop and the public bus stop so we spent a lot of time on that corner and now when I smell lilacs I just immediately feel like a kid again.
I’m Indigenous Canadian from northern Ontario so the strongest memories for me have to do with being out on the land with my family.
My favourite smell is a combination of a campfire inside my family’s teepee in the wilderness of northern Ontario in the early spring with snow still around and the mushkeg in the middle of melting and warming. The combination of fresh cut pine wood, pine boughs next to a new camp fire, fresh goose being roasted over the flames, the musky smell of the land, smoke from the fire and the cool damp scent of the snow and ice. It all brings me back to being a kid with my family. I wish I were there now.