FSJ commemorates Red Dress Day with twilight walk and artisan market

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — The Fort St. John Métis Society and the city’s Friendship Centre held their third annual Red Dress Day market and walk to raise awareness of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).

The event took place at Festival Plaza adjacent to Centennial Park.  While the crowd had subsided by the time the sun set, the day commemorating MMIWG remained important to the attendees who stayed to take part.

Beforehand, supporters such as the Fort St. John Women’s Resource Society and Foundry Fort St. John set up booths around the complex.

First commemorated in 2010, Red Dress Day honours the victims of MMIWG. It was begun as an art display by Manitoba-based artist Jaime Black.

In the centre of Festival Plaza was a large picture frame, adorned with MMIWG victims from the region, including Darylyn Supernant, Abigail Andrews, Renee Didier, Shirley Cletheroe and many others.

Métis Elder Shirley Salmond was one who walked around Centennial Park, with the crowd holding red lanterns and walking along the park’s walkway, lit red by the City of Fort St. John.

“Women like Abigail and Shirley Cletheroe, I’ve known those women for probably 10 years,” Salmond told Energeticcity.ca. “I know their grandchildren. Just being out here supporting their  families, I think it’s really important.”

“It is something that we need to keep bringing awareness, even to the government level. Sometimes that’s put on hold. This is real, and in our little city, there’s a lot of missing women, grandmothers and youth. That is my concern.”

Fort St. John Métis Society board member Nancy Desjarlais described the situation as “very sad” for friends and relatives, for not just loved ones, but the Indigenous community as a whole.

“I know a lot of those women that went missing,” explained Dejarlais. “[It is] just so sad for the parents and also for the friends that knew them. It’s very sad, but it’s important to hold something like this, for the youth right up to Elders.”

The event on Tuesday, May 5th was one of several organized by First Nations and Indigenous communities in the region.

Both Blueberry River First Nations and West Moberly First Nations held commemorative walks in their communities.

Data from Statistics Canada shows First Nations, Inuit and Métis women were six times more likely to be murdered than non-Indigenous Women in the period between 2009 and 2021. 

It also showed 81 per cent of Indigenous women were killed by someone they knew, including 35 per cent by an intimate partner.

The Red Dress Day Artisan Market and Walk took place on Tuesday, May 5th in Fort St. John and was organized by the Fort St. John Métis Society and the Fort St. John Friendship Centre.