October 4th is recognized as Sisters in Spirit to remember missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit folks while also fighting to end colonialist violence. In Dawson we are gathering on Monday, October 5th.

Over a year ago, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released their final report - Reclaiming Power and Place - a document they spent four years on gathering information from nearly 2400 participants.

Instead of a call to action for all Canadians at a national crisis, the report was met with discussing whether the word ‘genocide’ should be used to describe the heartbreaking pattern of the daily violence that Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit folks experience. So much so that the inquiry released a supplementary report about why their use of the word ‘genocide’ was correct.

The information collected from community members and knowledge keepers during the inquiry is essential for everyone living on Turtle Island.

NIMMIWG’s website has some truly amazing videos of key moments:

• “ We have known for at least 111 years the inequalities that have been facing these communities and how that has piled up on the hopes and dreams of children and in fact incentivized the removal of children from their families.” - Cindy Blackstock

• “When you look at the murders and disappearances of Indigenous men, they look very different. They are not being murdered because they are men. Indigenous women are very much targeted. We are targeted because all of the things the law has done to us through the Indian Act and a all of the things that the church has done to us.” - Fay Blaney

• “Though the notion of racial superiority has been sadly denounced, it lingers.” - Dr. Dalee Sambo Dorough

• “The gender binary is really harmful and the gender binary is inherently connected to patriarchy, paternalism, things like white supremacy and colonialism.” - Fallon Andy

• “The Ojibway belief system and the place of the child born is the human is understood to be an animate being. That gender is only understood to be implied in later contexts .” - Albert McLeod

• “There can become a point, which we’ve been calling system burnout, where accessing systems, the burden on you becomes so high that the perceived benefit of accessing those systems can be outweighed by that burden.” - Jasmine Redfern

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