A solemn memorial that honours the scores of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada officially opened in Halifax on Saturday.
The poignant display entitled “Walking With Our Sisters” is set up in at Mount Saint Vincent University. A special area has been set aside for children, most victims of the residential school system.
"I have family members who didn't make it home, that are buried somewhere, because the parents weren't necessarily told that their children had died," said survivor Geri Musgua-Leblanc
More than a year of planning and five days of installation went into the display.
“When we saw the box entitled “baby vamps” come into that room, there was just a quiet that came over the room, and we all just stood very silent in honouring them," said committee member Denise Pothier.
Visitors are told they may see the moccasins moving because of the spirits of the children are free to dance in death in a way they were not able to dance in life.
Joe Michael says he was drawn to the display by the spirits of ancestors who vanished from Eskasoni in 1936.
“My grandmother, her sister and their two husbands went missing, leaving behind 14 siblings as young as two months to 10 years old," Michael said.
He says many years later after service as an RCMP officer, his own investigation left him convinced they had been killed.
“My grandparents and my aunt and uncle and the unborn, it was not an accident."
Michael says he knows who committed acts of violence long ago and has forgiven them.
From this point on, no more photographs will be permitted of the display in the Mount Saint Vincent University art gallery. It will, however, be open to the public until a closing ceremony takes place on Feb. 1.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Ron Shaw.
