The Indigenous Student Association (ISA) remembers missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two Spirit people every year for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.
The ISA wrote the names of missing and murdered folks on red ribbons, puring their prayers and emotions into them, then tying them on the bridge across the creek in front of St. Paul’s University College.
Then, members of the ISA gathered around a ceremonial fire and burned the ribbons from the previous year.
Emma Smith, a Master’s student in history, explained this was a sort of memorial. The smoke, she said, is a way of returning their ribbons to nature.