It’s a muggy, mid-September night and more than a dozen people are gathering outside of the Aboriginal Centre near the corner of Main St. and Higgins Ave. in Winnipeg.
They’re smudging, handing out NARCAN kits and gearing up for the first outreach walk by Morgan’s Warriors in nearly two weeks.
A lot of the city’s unsheltered live in the area where there are encampments and shelters nearby.
There is also a lot of drug and alcohol use. It’s a good target area for Morgan’s Warriors to check in on some of the city’s most vulnerable.
“We’re going to be going down Main St. tonight and we’re going to see hundreds of people that are going to be lined up along the streets of Main, intoxicated. Struggling with that trauma that they’ve experienced from the residential schools, from our child welfare, foster homes, being placed in homes that maybe aren’t doing it for the right reasons. And it’s really sad because there’s definitely not enough resources out there,” says Melissa Robinson.
Robinson is the co-chair of Morgan’s Warriors, an Indigenous women led, outreach group formed as a way to honour her cousin, Morgan Harris, one of the four Indigenous women murdered by a Winnipeg serial killer. Her remains are believed to be located in a landfill north of the city of Winnipeg.
“Morgan was feisty, she was loving and all about her family and when the system failed her and took her kids – she then lost herself,” says Robinson.
Roughly eight years ago, Robinson felt like she had lost herself after falling into a deep depression following the death by suicide of her brother.
One of the ways she pulled herself out of that hard time was by giving back and she did that by joining the Bear Clan Patrol, where she also eventually met her husband George.
The stories are similar for those who volunteer now with Morgan’s Warriors.
“Every single one of these people behind me. They’re all friends. They’ve all been touched in one way or another through MMIWG, through loss, through addictions, seeing their families go through homelessness, kind of just everything and they all want to help in some way,” says Robinson.
“It’s not about us doing that photo op or tracking hours. These people are giving up their time and they want to come out and they want to help and I say that to them all the time, the most valuable thing you can give of yourself is that of your time.”
Robinson and her family were thrust into the national spotlight a little more than two years ago, after the chief of the Winnipeg police confirmed they would not be searching for the remains of Harris or Marcedes Myran in the privately owned Prairie Green Landfill outside the city.
The previous provincial government in Manitoba also would not commit resources to search the landfill.
“I still can’t believe everything we’ve had to go through the last couple of years,” says Robinson. “With fighting every single level of government – begging them to search a landfill so that my girls don’t have to go to a landfill to pay respects to their mom, to lay flowers down on Mother’s Day, to do any of that.
“We’ve all grieved, we’ve all had many losses since the loss of Morgan. I’ve lost my own son and I’ve had to continue with everything. It’s definitely not fair. Things need to change,” says Robinson.
One of the hardest and most bewildering times over the past two years was when the landfill search became an issue in the provincial election in Manitoba.
“Driving around the city, seeing billboards, ‘so no to the dig’ like how do you sleep at nighttime. How do you feel good about yourself putting that out, knowing that it’s our women laying in landfills. Their remains are there, they deserve a proper burial. That we couldn’t wrap our heads around. I know we had media reach out asking how we felt about it and we were at a loss for words, we really were because we thought wow how is this going in that direction? It was tough, definitely,” says Robinson.
Last March, the Manitoba and federal government both committed $20 million towards the search efforts.
Jobs have been posted and the actual search is expected to get underway this winter.
Robinson has long said the Prairie Green Landfill is just the beginning and a search at the city controlled Brady landfill would be next.
She is not expecting a similar political battle to get that search approved.
“I don’t think we’re going to need to fight as hard because I’m sure that once we start Prairie Green, there’s going to be more found than what we’re going in looking for and sitting at that table in the Legislative with the provincial government, they’re well aware too that that could happen. I’m certain that once we are done with Prairie Green, we will have no problems pushing forward with the Brady,” says Robinson.
Members of the Harris family are still pushing for an independent inquiry into the investigations of the murders of Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran, and Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman).
Last July, a resolution supporting that call was unanimously approved by the Assembly of First Nations.
“Someone needs to be responsible for not doing their job and I believe it’s the Winnipeg police. They need to be held accountable for their lack of work, their lack of investigating, their lack of commitment to our people and helping our people,” says Robinson.
