Looking to the Red for answers, peace

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This article was published 18/09/2014 (4216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ursula Mason knows the pain of having a missing family member and the deep-rooted sadness of always wondering.

It’s what brought the former St. Theresa Point resident to the Alexander Docks Wednesday afternoon to join the efforts in dragging the Red River.

“My brother went missing 12 years ago; he’s still missing, somewhere in the up-north lakes. It has a sentimental feeling for me and why I’m here,” Mason said. Her brother was driving a snowmobile that fell through the ice. “They never found him, and it’s been 12 years.”

She was casting a large metal hook attached to a thick rope, but only had a pile of garbage to show for it early on.

“I haven’t got much yet, but I have to try. It’s something. A lot of families don’t have closure. They’re still wondering,” Mason said.

It is a community-driven, volunteer search led by family and friends whose hope is evidence or even remains of any of Manitoba’s missing aboriginal women will be found.

Two boats plied the river Wednesday afternoon, pulling metal dragging bars attached to thick ropes. A half-dozen volunteers patrolled the dock and riverbank areas, casting long, four-pronged hooks being made on site by a volunteer from Quebec working out of the trunk of his car. He made heavy-duty dragging hooks — each created from two pieces of rebar bent into U shapes and bound together with wire. Volunteers tossed them into the deep, murky water and pulled them along the mucky bottom, hoping to snag on something.

Emotions were briefly inflamed around 7 p.m. when searchers on one boat found the end of a submerged rope off the dock near Stephen Juba Park on Waterfront Drive. The police were called, in case it was evidence, but it was not. The other end was caught on the end of a storm-drain grate.

The idea for the search, called Drag the Red, came after the discovery last month of the body of missing aboriginal teen Tina Fontaine.

‘I haven’t got much yet, but I have to try. It’s something. A lot of families don’t have closure. They’re still wondering’

— Ursula Mason, whose brother went missing 12 years ago

Leading the initiative are Kyle Kematch, whose sister, Amber Guiboche, has been missing since 2010, and Berndadette Smith, whose sister, Claudette Osborne, has been missing since 2008.

“We’re going to continue as long as the weather lets us,” Smith said. “They have a fire here burning, which is great, people are coming out for support. Our community is coming together, which is great, doing whatever they can to help.”

Manitoba Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, who joined the search Wednesday in a boat launched by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said volunteers faced many challenges on the river.

“It’s dirty, it’s a fast current and we don’t have nearly enough boats in the water, we can only cover a small area. So unless more boats get out here, we’re going to have a difficult time,” said Nepinak, whose cousin, Tanya Nepinak, missing since 2011, is among hundreds of cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women dating back to the 1960s.

“The more boats we have in the water, the more chances we have of finding something… this is a reflection of people and organizations coming together and helping one another.”

Also joining forces Wednesday with the searchers were MKO Grand Chief David Harper and members of some of the 30 northern communities MKO represents.

‘It’s dirty, it’s a fast current and we don’t have nearly enough boats in the water, we can only cover a small area. So unless more boats get out here, we’re going to have a difficult time’

— Manitoba Grand Chief Derek Nepinak

“We’ll most likely be out on the water (today) with an underwater camera and the sonar system,” Harper said, adding four divers from Island Lake will be flying in today and can begin an underwater search within 48 hours. “The places that we’ll be looking, we’ve gotten some information from people and from elders suggesting where we should be concentrating.”

Harper said MKO will also supply portable washrooms and some food for volunteers at the Alexander Docks.

ashley.prest@fresspress.mb.ca