THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 Vol. 75, No. 37
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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Walking With Our Sisters
A poignant display for the missing and murdered matt preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca
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hey are as simple as they are intricate, moccasin tops stitched and beaded by the hundreds, adorned with hearts and moons and bear paws, a young mother swaying with her child in the breeze, and words like hope and faith, or, on some, a name: “Jimmy, a friend, an aunty: your love is strong; Irene, a mom, a sister: we will never forget you.” The Walking With Our Sisters memorial is on display this week at the Taylor community hall, its final stop after a six-year journey to honour murdered and missing women and girls in Canada and the United States. More than 2,000 pairs of moccasin tops, also called vamps, have been submitted for the memorial, and were meticulously placed by a collective of women and elders over the last week. “A lot of the vamps when they arrived came with letters inside of them. Some of those letters said, ‘When I was a little girl, my grandma told me when I wasn’t feeling good to put my beadwork down,’” said Christi Belcourt, a Metis artist and co-ordinator of the project. “You have to pick up your beadwork when you’re ready to pour that love into (it) because people will feel that from you; they feel that from the beadwork, they’ll feel your energy in the beadwork. So, when you come into this installation … it’s not so much seeing them as it is feeling them. “Our traditional belief is that our energy goes into these, and so there’s a lot of prayers and a lot of tears and a lot of joy and a lot of hope put into these vamps. That’s what you’re feeling. It’s palpable, the energy is palpable.” Ceremony, not art Belcourt and volunteers who have helped set up the memorial are quick to note this is a ceremony — not an art exhibit. Each vamp represents an unfinished life of a missing or murdered woman or girl. They have been arranged to mirror a traditional ceremonial lodge, where women stand around the periphery, facing inward. Another layer of vamps has been placed as a path to guide visitors through the display. “We’re not just people who are gazing, but we’re being gazed at,” Belcourt said. “The women are looking at us, asking us what are we going to do? Not only are we looking at their moccasins, but they are looking back at us. In that sense, it’s really important that the people that come through here and view this come with a sense of respect and love and compassion for the families who have lost people.” A lean-to has been built in the centre of the hall to represent a traditional Dane-Zaa fu-
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Collective: Evelyn Wolter, Debra Grant, Bernice Shadow, Helen Penner, Bonnie Hornsby, Helen Knott, Darcy Desjarlais, Donna Halbert, Tasha Lalonde, Nicole Amstutz, Sue Auger, Marlene Greyeyes, Connie Greyeyes, and Liz Logan were among the volunteers who worked on the Walking With Our Sisters memorial in Taylor.
neral ceremony. Medicine bags filled with tobacco, cedar, sage, and sweetgrass adorn the walls, tied with yellow, green, and blue ribbons to represent Treaty 8: as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow. “That’s how long that treaty was meant to last, and given the industry and the Site C dam and the things that have been allowed to go on, that holds true to us,” says Connie Greyeyes, part of the committee that helped bring the installation to Northeast B.C. “We still honour that. Unfortunately, we can’t force other people to honour that, but we still hold to that. We have kept our side of the agreement and it’s a representation that we hold that true, that those words meant something to us and they still do.” The same medicines have been placed underneath the red cloth that covers the floor. Visitors are encouraged to smudge before they enter the memorial and when they leave, and must wear slippers or walk barefoot through the display. Women are encouraged to wear dresses, as is custom in indigenous culture. “As you’re walking along, you’re protected, and the medicine is helping to heal and guide us through this,” Greyeyes said. Local presence There are 13 murdered or missing women from the Peace Region represented in the memorial. At an opening ceremony held Monday, more local vamps were added to the collection. Liz Logan, former chief of the Fort Nelson First Nation, placed vamps to honour her grandmother and two aunts, three of at least nine women from her community who have lost their lives in suspicious circumstances, or have mysteriously disappeared, she said. “Personally, my grandmother was found dead in 1964 and they said she died from exposure.
But, rumour has it, that wasn’t so,” Logan said. “Also, I have two aunties whose lives were cut short, and it was my youngest auntie who’s murderer was convicted.” It’s a sombre memorial and a sombre time for families — even for those who shed tears placing the vamps, Logan said. But it’s an important moment to honour and respect those whose lives were taken before they were supposed to be, Logan said. “In ceremony for us, sometimes there’s no preparation,” Logan said of placing her vamps. “It is what it is, it happens when it happens. In the moment, you just accept it.” Logan was one of five grandmothers who helped guide the memorial’s setup and to advise on protocol, and jumped at the chance to take part when asked. “It’s a very important aware-
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ness event for those people that don’t know or don’t want to know about what’s happening to women out there,” Logan said. “It’s not necessarily aboriginal women. We have vamps here from non-aboriginal women. This is about murdered women and missing women, missing children who went to residential school.” Time and care was taken to learn about the women when handling and placing their vamps, Logan said. “As I opened them, I wasn’t just opening them and putting them down,” Logan said. “I’d open them, I’d read (the letter), I’d look at the vamps, and I’d pray for the name attached, and caress the vamps, and look in wonderment at the beautiful beadwork in some of the vamps. I spent a lot of time doing that.” See SISTERS on A11
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