Students at Maple Ridge Secondary and members of the community walked 7,000 laps of the school’s track on Tuesday, May 5, in honour of Red Dress Day.
The walk, which has been taking place for the past three years to mark the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and those in the LGBTQIA2S+ community, is put on by members of the school’s Circle of Indigenous Youth and Allies group.
Participants symbolically walk the 724 kilometre span of the Highway of Tears in northern B.C. where many, mostly Indigenous women, have gone missing or been found murdered.
“As a community and a school we walked a total of 3,513 kms,” said Frankie Mclean, one of the event organizers. “We had hundreds of students and countless other community members participate and we are very grateful for all the honouring that happened.”
The “Say Her Name, Walk Her Walk” campaign started the week before with presentations by the Indigenous Circle group to their peers, about the stories of seven women who have gone missing or have been found murdered.
On the day of the walk, fellow organizer Hillena Ross, spent the morning putting small moccasin stickers along a map of Highway 16, showing the progression of the walk at the school.
Participants were invited to pick up a card containing the story of a missing or murdered woman and read it while walking a lap of the track.
Marilyn Seymour heard about the event in The News, and said it was important for her to show up and support the event.
“I just feel they are left behind and nobody knows who they are,” said Seymour about the missing and murdered women, holding back tears as she walked a lap around the track. “That’s wrong.”
Seymour, who is almost 80, said her grandmother was Cree, but she grew up in a white family in northern Manitoba and never had any connection to her culture.
She believes that violence against women is a failure of society, that women in many cultures are seen as disposable.
“But I just see it’s wrong, and I just see it’s racist and it’s taking away these mostly young girls who just don’t have a chance to do anything. It’s such a loss. It’s so unnecessary and nobody cares,” she said fighting the tears.
Grade 9 students Hallee Gibson, Charlotte Kuba, Scarlett Scharters, and Janayah Daniel, were embarking on their first lap of the track.
“I think it’s really just important to show that these women will never be forgotten. Their stories will live on as long as we are all remembering them. And I think it’s just important to show that we still care and we are trying to remember and honour their names,” said Gibson.
Her friends agreed that it was important to bring awareness to the missing and murdered women’s stories because, they said, there are people who are not even aware this is happening.
Daniel mentioned the presentations where each year seven new stories have been brought to the forefront.
But, she said, there are too many stories.
“There’s just so many more other than those seven, and you keep building and building on each year,” she said.
Jett Santos, another Grade 9 student, said he was shocked to learn that calls for help from the families of missing Indigenous women seemed to go unanswered and he thinks more effort should be poured into trying to solve cold cases.
He was also appalled to read about a 19-year-old Indigenous woman, who was already working in the sex trade industry, despite her young age.