Global Courant
For 22 years, Sandra McNeil has never had a place to mourn her mother.
Dawn Carisse, who is Abenaki, disappeared in 2001 after fleeing North Bay Psychiatric Hospital, where she was admitted after a brain injury caused short-term memory loss.
To this day, Carisse’s case remains unsolved.
“I don’t have a grave or anything I can go to … visit her or talk to her,” McNeil said.
Having this monument here, it brings – not closure per se – but a place I can come to, because I don’t have that.– Laura Lacrosse, daughter of murdered native woman
On the longest day of the year, McNeil joined dozens of other families under clear, sunny skies in a ceremony to connect with their mothers, sisters, daughters, cousins and aunts, and make sure they are never forgotten.
The first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Memorial (MMIWG) east of Winnipeg was unveiled last Wednesday on National Indigenous Peoples Day in Whitefish River First Nation, an Anishinaabe community of about 1,500 people about 102 miles southwest of Sudbury, Ont.
LOOK | The story behind the new monument to MMIWG
New monument dedicated to MMIWG will serve as a place to heal
Families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls say a new Whitefish River First Nation memorial will be a meeting point to help them heal. The project has been in the works for years and is one of the few public monuments dedicated to MMIWG in Canada.
It is a memorial designed by families for families by native artists at Signature Memorials in Orillia, Ont.
“It’s a place where I can visit and honor my mother,” McNeil said.
When the green sail was lifted, cheers erupted from the audience, including First Nations leaders, members of the Ontario Provincial Police and other dignitaries.
The applause was quickly followed by a heavy wave of emotion that fell over the crowd.
For minutes, no one spoke, some family members cried, and everyone absorbed the symbolism of the monument.
The round shape represents the continuation of life, while the base looks like a drum to mark the beating heart.
Daniel Opasinis took a 12-hour bus ride with his aunt from Oshawa, Ontario, to honor his mother Rachel Russell in a ceremony that unveiled the first memorial to honor missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Whitefish River First Nation. (Mathieu Theriault/CBC)
An opening – a division in the rock – runs through the center of the monument and indicates the missing.
“That circle could never be complete because those loved ones are still missing and we desperately want to bring them home,” said Meggie Cywink, a longtime Whitefish River MMIWG attorney who organized both the event and a healing retreat for family members prior to to the disclosure.
Cywink also helped families design the memorial, a task she called a labor of love.
Her sister Sonya Nadine Cywink was murdered at the age of 31 in Elgin County, southwest of London, Ont. A $60,000 reward is available for information leading to the killer’s arrest.
“Families are stronger than you realize,” Cywink said. “This project is about intergenerational healing.”
A place for families to reconnect with loved ones, culture
There are no words about the monument.
Instead, engraved on the right is an image of a jingle dress dancer, a symbol of healing, with flowers woven through the center along with strawberries, known as the “heart berry” for its shape and medicinal benefits.
“Don’t wipe your tears, you need that healing,” Laura Lacrosse told the families.
Lacrosse paid tribute to her mother Deborah Anne Sloss, whose 1997 murder in Toronto remains unsolved.
She said the memorial’s location is personally appropriate, as her mother was born down the road in Espanola, Ont.
“Having this memorial here, it brings — not necessarily closure — but a place I can come to, because I don’t have that,” Lacrosse said.
Denise Beeswax of Chippewas of the Thames First Nation in southwestern Ontario said the MMIWG memorial will be a place of healing. (Mathieu Theriault/CBC)
Funded by the Ontario and federal governments, the memorial was erected outside the Whitefish River First Nation community center off Highway 6 in an area surrounded by many other First Nations and considered sacred by the Anishinabek Nation.
Several days prior to the unveiling, family members gathered at a Whitefish River lodge surrounded by cedar and pine trees and swimming turtles.
Directly across the clear lake, there is a white cliff known as Dreamer’s Rock, a place where young Anishinaabe people come for what are known as vision quests to access the sacred.
They can spend four to eight days at a time on the rock, without food or drink, until a vision comes to guide them as they mature.
Daniel Opasinis, 19, stood on the deck of the lodge, looking out to that rock for his own guidance.
His mother, Rachel Russell, was murdered at the age of 28 in Cobourg, Ont. Her case remains unsolved.
The red granite memorial unveiled last Wednesday at Whitefish River First Nation is Ontario’s first for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. (Olivia Stefanovich/CBC)
Opasinis said his mother, Mi’kmaq of Eel River Bar First Nation in northern New Brunswick, was the most immersed in Indigenous culture in his family.
He called coming to Whitefish River First Nation “surreal,” mainly because the retreat gave him a chance to reconnect with his culture and get closer to his mother.
“Being around here, I imagine she learned the same teachings I learned and saw the same things I saw,” Opasinis said.
“That was the coolest part, finding something I think I already knew.”
Years in the making
For almost a week, Opasinis learned the art of fire keeping, creation stories, the meaning behind ceremonies and the use of plants as medicine from the elderly.
Opasinis took a 12-hour bus ride with his aunt, Russell’s sister, from Oshawa, Ontario, to personally witness the unveiling of the MMIWG memorial.
“It’s an issue that I don’t think has gotten the light it deserves,” Opasinis said.
“The bottom line is that Indigenous women are being killed faster than any other group in Canada. It’s sad to know that, and it’s sad to know it’s because of our culture and who we are.”
CBC News was invited by the organizers to spend time with families before the unveiling and to cover the reveal itself.
Jessie McDonald is one of the surviving family members of MMIWG, who has worked on the memorial since 2018. (Mathieu Theriault/CBC)
The memorial was supposed to be finished a few years ago, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed those plans back.
Shortages in the supply chain caused delays in obtaining red granite, which families requested as the color to represent MMIWG.
The monument is the first of two monuments dedicated to MMIWG to be unveiled in Ontario this year.
2nd monument in Ontario to be unveiled this fall
The first monument in Whitefish River is considered to be the southern monument, while the second, expected to go public on Oct. 4 in Kenora, Ontario, will be the northern monument.
Both monuments are placed opposite each other to show the connection between all MMIWG families.
The project cost $199,792 to create both monuments, an art-based healing gathering for families and a mentoring program, according to Women and Gender Equality Canada.
“We all carry things, and this lightens the load,” said Denise Beeswax, a member of the Thames First Nation Chippewas who gathered to support families.
“This is very good for everyone. A healing process, something that is needed to make us strong enough to do what we need to do tomorrow.”
Surviving relatives of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls gathered at Rainbow Lodge in Whitefish River First Nation, about 100 kilometers southwest of Sudbury, Ontario, prior to the memorial’s unveiling. (Mathieu Theriault/CBC)
The memorial is one of more than 100 MMIWG memorial projects funded by Ottawa in response to the national inquiry into MMIWG, which concluded in 2019 that the disproportionate rates of violence faced by Indigenous women and girls amount to genocide.
The inquiry made 231 calls for justice. Only two are complete.
“Traction must be maintained going forward and we need a longer and greater commitment from our federal and provincial governments to fund adequate prevention,” said Whitefish River First Nation Chief Rodney Nahwegahbow.
“The government must account for its part in this through the introduction of treaties and colonization.”
The unveiling was a long time coming for Jessie McDonald and the other surviving MMIWG family members who have been working on the memorial’s design since 2018.
McDonald said she hopes it serves as a sacred place for families to sit with their loved ones, and sends a message to the general public.
“I hope it makes them aware, and maybe they love and help each other more,” said McDonald, who is from Wabaseemoong Independent Nations, 60 miles northwest of Kenora.
“I see the hard work of all the people who worked on this coming together and finally we are going to show the product,” she said. “And for me, I can say the work is done. We can show our loved ones that we did it for them.”
