Fort William First Nation honours Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman, Girls, and Two Spirit people
By Rick Garrick
FORT WILLIAM — Fort William Chief Michele Solomon highlighted the importance of supporting family and loved ones during her community’s Red Dress Walk, which began and ended at the Youth Centre on May 5. The walk was held in honour of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirit people.
“It’s important that we come out and support family and loved ones who have experienced Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and to continue to bring awareness to the issue because our women continue to go missing, our women continue to die at the hands of violence,” Chief Solomon says. “And understanding that there’s a lot of historical trauma that bring our women and our people to be vulnerable to be missing and being murdered, so [it’s important] to talk about those things and bring awareness to those things.”
Chief Solomon says there was a good turnout for the walk.
“There was about 40 walkers, so there’s people that are from the community and then there’s visitors to our community that come to join in the walk,” Chief Solomon says. “I appreciate that visitors come and walk with us, and there’s family members here, people that have experienced this directly.”
Biigtigong Nishnaabeg’s Tanya Moses says she did four different Red Dress Day Walks, including the one in Fort William and three in Thunder Bay, on May 5.
“It’s important because, for one, this is also being a part of raising awareness and it could also be like building partnerships, being visible in the community and supporting the ones that are putting on the events,” Moses says. “And just to acknowledge the reason why we are here, the families that have been impacted, the ones that are missing, the ones that have been murdered, it’s just kind of showing the support for the families. It was a nice turnout, we were able to walk around and share our songs. It was really nice, the drums being sounded and all the red that’s around us, there’s red bandanas, red skirts.”
Fort William’s Michelle Yantz, a member of the All My Relations and Friends drum group, says they began with the Calling the Grandfathers song and ended with the Wishita song.
“It was good, there was a lot of drums, kids running and following us and leading us,” Yantz says. “There’s still a lot of people that are currently and for many years have been murdered or they’re missing. It seems like it’s an ongoing thing of our youth and women and men, Two Spirit that disappear, and [it’s important] to make that awareness and to give those ones strength, the ones that are still hurting a lot, and empower them.”
Fort William’s Claudia LeGarde says it was important for her to support the walk, noting that she has some aunts who were murdered.
“There’s too many murdered, missing men and women and girls and boys and Elders,” LeGarde says. “Every year, Fort William always has this program or something going on, so it’s good to support.”
Fort William Elder Sheila DeCorte highlighted the importance of continuing with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ 231 Calls for Justice.
“It’s important for us to be reminded of the many women and girls that have gone missing over the years, and a reminder that even though the National Inquiry (into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls) was done in 2015, that’s 10 years ago and all those Calls (for Justice) that came out of that inquiry, only a couple of them have been actioned,” Elder DeCorte says. “So we need to remind people that we need to continue this work and remind the government of those Calls [for Justice].”