Search for bodies to begin

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This article was published 11/09/2014 (4055 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bernadette Smith has no illusions about the challenges she and other volunteers face when they begin dragging the Red River next week to look for the bodies of missing women.

After all, Winnipeg is the Cree word for muddy waters.

Add to that a city built up on either side of its shores and made up of citizens who have dumped vehicles, shopping carts, furniture and other detritus into the river for more than 100 years.

Smith, who has organized the group Drag the Red, said she grew up in the North End near the river and swam in it many times when she was younger.

Smith said that during a meeting with Winnipeg police officers on Wednesday, a veteran dive-team member told her the conditions they would face.

“She told us about the lack of visibility, the garbage in there,” Smith said.

“She made sure we would have life-jackets on. But the police also let us know they’re behind us.

“We know they can’t do it unless they have cause or evidence that points to it.”

Drag the Red is hosting a feast and pipe ceremony Sunday at noon at the Alexander Docks, where the body of Tina Fontaine, 15, was discovered by police divers, before they begin a short test to see how they can drag the river’s bottom.

Smith, whose own sister, Claudette Osborne, went missing in 2008, decided to create the group after Fontaine’s body was found last month.

Police divers were searching the Red River for a man who drowned — later identified as “homeless hero” Faron Hall — when they discovered Fontaine’s body in a garbage bag.

That made Smith wonder how many other missing women like Fontaine were also hidden underwater.

Smith now has the owners of seven boats and the St. Theresa Point search and recovery team volunteering their time. Donations are coming in to support the group.

The group plans to drag poles from the boats along the river’s bottom, pulling up anything they find.

Smith also said police told the group to let them know where they are dragging so they can advise the service’s river patrol.

“We’re determined,” she said. “The police heard that from us. They told us safety is their number 1 concern and we’re going to make sure we have experienced boaters and a boat on shore if someone falls into the water.”

‘We’re determined. The police heard that from us. They told us safety is their number 1 concern, and we’re going to make sure we have experienced boaters and a boat on shore if someone falls into the water’

— Bernadette Smith, organizer of Drag the Red

Diver Howard Rybuck also knows the conditions the volunteer group will encounter.

Rybuck, founding president of the Canadian Amphibious Search Team, was one of the volunteer divers who tried to find Nathaniel Thorassie after the six-year-old fell through the ice on the Red River while playing with his brother in December 2010, and after the police dive team abandoned the search. Weeks of searching failed to find the child, but his body was recovered the following June.

“I just hope they are doing it thoughtfully and safely,” he said.

“There’s really no visibility in the river and, because of the age of Winnipeg and the number of bridges, it has been a dumping ground for many years. There are shopping carts, old appliances, autos, bridge pilings, and all sorts of debris to become entangled on. We found 18 cars that police recovered.

“It’s amazing what ends up in that river.”

Rybuck gave a reality check about how the rivers in Winnipeg change dramatically through the year.

“We drop the river level in the fall and then it gets thick ice almost to the bottom and then we get flooding water in the spring with big chunks of ice, which drag and cut the bottom,” he said.

Smith said her group knows it won’t be able to drag the entire river in the next few weeks, but its members are hoping to look at several areas.

“We know what we are up against, but we have people to help,” she said. “And we have family members of people missing. People have been wondering, even before my sister went missing, if there are bodies in the river.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca