A walk to honour First Nations people who have gone missing or been lost to violence is set to go in Prince Albert Wednesday.
The 18 annual Honouring our Sisters and Brothers Memorial Walk will be departing from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Memorial on River Street before wrapping up at Kinsmen Park. Shirley Henderson, the chair of the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) Women’s Commission said before starting on their way walkers will be hearing from Brian Gallagher, the father of Megan Gallagher, who disappeared in Saskatoon in September of 2020.
“He’s going to come and talk about everything that they’ve gone through and what they’ve had to deal with,” she said.
Also expected to take part is the family of Tamra Keepness, who went missing in Regina in the summer of 2004. Henderson explained when Keepness went missing people traveled down from La Ronge and Montreal Lake Cree Nation to help in the massive search effort.
“Her mother and three or four siblings will be at the walk,” she said.
Henderson has been involved with the walk since it started. She said organizers were spurred into action after former PAGC Grand Chief Gary Merasty was advising staff to read a report put out by Amnesty International which looked at Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in the province.
“At that time Saskatchewan was the highest province that had lost women, so we decided to have an awareness walk so that people would realize, ‘hey we have a problem here, what can we do to solve this,” said Henderson.
Since being established the walk has grown with more people coming out, specifically Henderson said they have had more families coming out who have been directly impacted with family members going missing.
When it comes to the number of people they are expecting, Henderson said numbers tend to depend on the conditions.
“We’ve had as many as 300, it really depends on the weather,” she said.
(PHOTOS: Top, members of the Prince Albert Grand Council Women’s Commission unveil two monuments for missing and murdered Indigenous women. Bottom left and right, the backside of the two monuments. Photos by Fraser Needham.)