The Long Run

- Andrew Duffy

WHEN HE WAS NINE years old, Theland Kicknosway asked his mother a profoundly difficult question: “What happens to the children of the missing and murdered Indigenous women?”

His mother, Elaine, didn’t have a ready answer, so she reached out to a friend, Bridget Tolley. Hailing from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community, near Maniwaki, Que., Tolley is the founder of Families of Sisters in Spirit, a grassroots initiative that supports loved ones of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and transgender and two-spirit people. (The number of missing women is reported to number approximately 1,200 across Canada, though activists estimate the true total could in fact be much higher.)

Tolley explained to Theland that it wasn’t easy for the children left behind, many of whom were taken in by grandparents. “It’s tough knowing that people you love are gone,” she said.

That idea bothered Theland so much that he became determined to help—to be, in his own words, “a child looking out for another child.” After some thought, he knew what to do. He would run.