Grandmother begins cross-country journey to bring awareness to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

A Saskatchewan grandmother took the first steps of a 7,500-kilometre journey in Victoria on Friday. (CTV)

A Saskatchewan grandmother took the first steps of a 7,500-kilometre journey in Victoria on Friday.

Fifty-four-year-old Krista Fox is walking across Canada to raise awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The 10-month journey started at Victoria’s Mile Zero sign Friday morning and will end December 2022 in St. Johns, N.L.

“Krista’s Kilometres for MMIW” kicked off with drumming, a ceremony and a walk to the ocean for a toe dip before beginning the journey.

The disappearance of a close family friend, Ashley Morin, in 2018 inspired Fox to want to do something more to help families going through the same thing. So, last year, she started planning her walk.

The goal is to bring awareness to the severity of the human rights crisis surrounding Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls and to generate more resources to find them.

“We needed to do more, we needed to stand up, we needed to be heard that our women are continuing to go missing and be murdered,” says Fox.

She is walking with two other First Nations women from Saskatchewan who have missing and murdered family members: Lindsay Bishop, whose sister is still missing and believed murdered; and Dianne Morin, whose daughter went missing four years ago, and was the catalyst for Fox to take action.

The women hope their walk will generate conversation around the issue so their loved ones won’t be forgotten.

“There are many days that families … that we don’t feel like nobody gives a s**t about our loved ones, many days,” says an emotional Fox, who encourages people to talk about the issue, post their own stories on social media feeds and bring those who can do something about it to the table and find solutions to stop these tragedies from happening in the future.

“Let’s have these conversations,” she says. “Yes, they are tough, they are very tough, but imagine for one second if that was your sister, your mother, your uncle, your brother; you sure would want people talking about it.”

The first leg of the journey is from Victoria to Nanaimo. Fox encourages people to walk with them as she passes through their community.

There is a GoFundMe page for Krista’s Kilometres to help with expenses along the way. It also has more information about the walk. 

You can also follow on the Facebook page "Krista’s Kilometers for MMIW" or her TikTok account.