MMIW Red Dress Day memorial and events throughout Cold Lake

On May 5, Red Dress Day is to remember and raise awareness of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls. 

Residents around the Lakeland area remembered all the lost and missing Indigenous women by lining the Millenium Trial with red dresses, showing photos of those lost and still missing, and having guest speakers with performances hosted at Hotel Dene. 

Susie O’Connor showcased photos on display at the Lakeland Inn to bring awareness, which was done last year continuing this year – the photos showcase individuals across the Lakeland all with their own connection to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. 

“The Friendship Centre got involved last year when women started speaking out and spreading awareness, speaking out for these people who for no reason at all are being targeted,” said the Executive Director of the Cold Lake Native Friendship Centre, Agnes Gendron.

“I think it’s very important for the Friendship Centre because we receive so many people here every day that we want to be a voice for the ones who have gone on, every one of us has been affected by this one way or another.” 

Dr. Jacqueline Marie Maurice was one of the speakers at Hotel Dene who was a survivor of the Sixties Scoop where throughout the 1960’s Indigenous children were taken or “scooped away” from their birth families and communities usually without consent. 

Maurice is the CEO of the Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation run by volunteers who accompany Sixties Scoop survivors and their descendants along their healing journey. Maurice is also the author of “Out of the Shadows” a book about other survivors’ stories and how they survived these traumas. 

Maurice had copies of her books at the event and gave a perspective to those in attendance being someone of Indigenous Metis descent who had to face the loss of identity and family.