05/05/2026
The Forks in Winnipeg is a lively district in a reclaimed trainyard, at the junction of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers. It's a year round destination for locals and visitors, with skating trails, art, restaurants and public events. Standing with solemn dignity beside a trail is a granite monument to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
The monument is curved and polished, with a round hole in what could be a torso. What could be a missing heart - of a family or a community.
Just a little ways down the trail is the Oodena Circle, a large grassy amphitheatre - a perfect spot to linger in summer. But my most vivid memories of the amphitheatre are in the winter of 2018, when the community spontaneously gathered to mark and attend to the acquittals of white men who had been on trial for murdering Native youth. In February, the air by the rivers is bitterly cold, a bleakness that seemed to reflect the systemic inability to protect Native young people, or to bring any justice to bear on their deaths. One of those gatherings was to remember and mourn Tina Fontaine.
Tina Fontaine was 15 years old when she was murdered, and her body dumped in the Red River, a few miles downstream from the Forks. She had been recently placed in a hotel, on her own, by social services. She had contact with a hospital, shelter, social workers and police in the few days preceding her death. All failed to protect her. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Inquiry was established following her death.
I remember the cold, that February afternoon. Cold that seemed to be lodged within, that felt helpless and hopeless. I remember the raw sorrow of speakers who accompanied Tina's family in the courthouse to hear the verdict.
Today is Red Dress Day - a day to remember that Indigenous women and girls like Tina Fontaine are systemically vulnerable to violence. It's a day to remember that missing persons reports (like Tina's) are ignored, or minimized. It's a day to remember that that too many of the women and girls who are missing have ended up in rivers or landfills. It's a day to remember the hole left in the hearts of families and communities.
