Valemount marches for Red Dress Day
“Each dress is a spirit that has been taken from us.”
By Rachel Fraser
Every year on May 5th, Valemount residents hang red dresses, and paint red handprints over their mouths: bold symbols representing loss and injustice.
The red dresses represent women, missing or murdered. So often, both.
The handprints remind us that missing and murdered women can’t speak. Their voices have been silenced, and they depend on those left behind to speak their names, tell their stories and advocate for justice.
“Each dress is a spirit that has been taken from us,” said Sherry Tinsley, organizer of the Valemount march to commemorate the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-spirited People, also known as Red Dress Day.
“In many indigenous cultures, red symbolizes life, blood and the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds. [It’s also believed] to be a colour spirits can see, making it a powerful symbol for remembrance and grief.”
This day and these symbols bring attention to the fact that Indigenous women make up 24 per cent of female homicide victims, though they make up only 5 per cent of the Canadian population, according to Tinsley.
In addition to remembering those that have been lost, Tinsley is passionate about educating the young about the ongoing danger of human trafficking and predators. Whether it’s getting into a cab alone in the city or going for a run on the highway, sometimes women don’t come back. She has been organizing a local march since about 2016, she estimates.
Local Indigenous students Eliza Mitchell and Jennifer Stone, both 15, took the lead in bringing their classmates to join the march, and walked at the head of the column with the drummers, carrying signs. When they arrived at school that morning, they realized the day’s significance and the school’s planned participation in the march had been forgotten by the teachers and administration. They addressed it with their teacher and insisted on attending, which the school quickly facilitated, according to principal Derrick Shaw.
Their fellow students stepped up as allies.
“I think the handprints really brought everyone together,” Stone said. “I was doing mine; me and Eliza were just going to do ours, but then people started lining up asking. Like people who aren’t Indigenous, which I thought was kind of iffy, but I think it was nice that they were showing awareness and they were showing that they care by doing that.”
“For people who don’t know what it is, I feel it’s important to share it out,” Mitchell added.
Regarding what makes it personal to her, Mitchell said “I feel like all Indigenous [people] are somewhat related. I go to the powwows, I go see some of my cousins. I dance with them, I do the culture with them, and they’ve lost people who were kidnapped or murdered.”
“And we live on the Highway of Tears. I live right on that highway,” Stone said.
Both girls have a background of leadership and participation in commemorative and awareness activities around their culture and the injustices that affect indigenous communities, such as the Red Dress and Orange Shirt days. Orange Shirt Day, or the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, raises awareness about the experiences, and loss, of Indigenous children via Canada’s Residential School system, and is commemorated annually on June 30th.
