'You are warriors tonight': loved ones honour missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls at Memorial March

CBC

15-02-2025

There isn't a day that passes when Nikki Komaksiutiksak doesn't think of Jessica Michaels.
She remembers the 17-year old as a "beautiful human being," who shared a passion for the arts and was gifted with a talented voice to become a throat singer.
Michaels was found dead in a boarding house in 2001.
On Friday Komaksiutiksak held her relative's memory close to her heart as she participated in the annual Memorial March of Manitoba in honour of missing and murder Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit individuals (MMIWG2S+).
"February 14th is a day of love … but for a lot of our families, we don't get the ability to do that in human form," Komaksiutiksak said.
"What better way to do that to honour our missing and murdered loved ones with events, where we can come together in solidarity," she said.
Dozens walked downtown Friday night, braving the frigid temperature that felt close to -28 with the windchill, for the march.
Among the crowd, families held banners in the shape of purple butterflies that displayed the handwritten name of their loved one who had been murdered or gone missing.
The overall silence from the crowd was filled with the sound of drums and chants that lead at the front of the march along Memorial Boulevard, St. Mary Avenue, Balmoral Street and Portage Avenue, before returning to the doorstep of the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
The first memorial march was held in Vancouver in 1992 after Cheryl Ann Joe, a 26-year-old Shíshálh woman, was murdered in the city's Downtown Eastside.
To Komaksiutiksak the march, which is now held every Feb.14 across Canada and the United States, is a display of community strength and a testament to the enduring relationships built from shared trauma.
But it is also "a powerful reminder that there is a genocide that is happening every single day of our lives here in this country," she said.
"We are not going to stay silent about this."
Before the march on Friday, families and loved ones of MMIWG2S+ individuals gathered inside the art gallery for a ceremony.
Photos of some of the women and girls who never came back home, along with a purple parchment with at least 215 of their names, were displayed.
Quilts with red dress designs embroidered in them were handed to 15 families mourning a missing or lost one, among them was Bernice Catcheway
The mother came out for her 17th memorial march on Friday to honour her daughter Jennifer Catcheway, who hasn't been found since she went missing in 2008.
"That sadness and that feeling of hurt and pain, you could feel that as you walk," Catcheway told the audience inside the gallery.
"It's an honour to stand before the families … I know that a lot of you are heartbroken, a lot of us miss our loved ones," she said. "But as long as there's breath on us, we'll go on searching."
Catcheway holds onto the hope that one day the answer to what happened to her daughter will come her way and bring Jessica back home.
But as the crowd prepared to go in the march, she invited them to hold their heads up high.
"You are warriors tonight," Catcheway said. "I won't give them an inch to see me cry and to be hurt."
A report from Stats Canada shows Indigenous women and girls experienced violence rates higher than their non-indigenous counterparts. Between 2009 and 2021, 490 of Canada's homicide victims were Indigenous women and girls.
To Sandra DeLaronde, team lead for Giganawenimaanaanig, Manitoba's MMIWG2S+ implementation committee, the memorial march is a critical show of community solidarity, important to help lower the numbers of MMIWG2S+ people over time.
"When we can create a stronger community, and not just the Indigenous community… we are creating safer spaces and places," she said.