Charity and Cameron West with staff and supporters at the Odawa Native Friendship Centre in Ottawa on Friday. Photo: Kierstin Williams/APTN.
A couple from Prince George, B.C. who are on a walk across Canada were welcomed by a group of supporters from the Odawa Friendship Centre in Ottawa on Friday.
Charity West, a member of the Kwadacha Nation and Cameron West, a member of Lake Babine Nation, have been walking 40 kilometers a day beginning May in Alberta to raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and men.
Their goals are to raise media coverage, open the conversation to non-Indigenous people, and leave a better Canada for the seventh generation.
“We aren’t walking for ourselves, we are walking for children. We’re walking for their children and their children. So, for me, personally, I don’t think this walk is for us, is for them,” says Cameron.
The couple lives along the Highway of Tears, a 720-kilometre stretch of Highway 16 where the RCMP say 18 women and girls have reportedly gone missing or have been murdered.
The final report of the National Inquiry of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls found that Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than any other demographic in Canada.
Both Charity and Cameron have lost family members. The father of Charity’s son, Barry Blaine Thomas Seymour, has been missing from Prince George since May 2012 and he has not yet been found.
Five years ago, Cameron’s 18-year-old cousin, Jessica Patrick, was murdered. Cameron says her body was found outside of Smithers, B.C., after searchers noticed birds circling an object. The case remains unsolved.
“There really needs to be a change. Like we have so many people that we’ve lost personally within our families,” says Charity.
“It’s not right that this is such a regular occurrence within our Indigenous community this can’t continue to happen. This has to stop.”
Not just a walk
The Odawa Friendship Centre is helping to support the couple with gas, a good rest, and supplies to help them continue their cross-country walk.
Donna Hester, an intergenerational trauma program manager at Odawa says their journey is not just a walk, it is important healing work.
“It promotes that awareness and education understanding and it brings those issues out into the forefront,” says Hestor. “Even though it’s a cause that comes from a place of trauma of what we all experience, I believe that coming together in situations like this is also healing.”
The couple expects to arrive in St. Johns., Newfoundland and Labrador in October. Then they will begin their walk home which includes the 720-kilometre-long Highway of Tears from Prince Rupert to Prince George.
