The first snowfall of winter arrived in Manitoba this week, and that meant the end of another season spent looking for Jennifer Catcheway, the Aboriginal woman who disappeared on her eighteenth birthday seven years ago.
Catcheway’s mother, Bernice Catcheway, posted a tearful video on Facebook Tuesday, where she called it, “sad that we’re coming to an end for another season.”
“We gave our best, we did our best all summer long,” she said in the recording.
“One day we’ll meet again, and I’ll tell you myself face-to-face, Jennifer, how much we love you and how much we look for you,” she added.
Cathcheway said she doesn’t know “what kind of animals would allow us to go through this,” and thanked the volunteers who continued to help the family search throughout the season.
A message to my Jennifer and a thank you to my family and friends. We never could have came this far without your prayers and support please contact me if you have any information regarding our beloved daughter Jennifer Catcheway.❤
Posted by Bernice Catcheway on Wednesday, November 18, 2015
The Catcheways were given newfound hope in late October when a witness told RCMP that she knew where Catcheway was and who she was with the night she was last seen.
"The family will often obtain consent to search or dig when we would not have enough grounds to obtain the required legal authorization to do so," the RCMP said in a statement on October 30.
The dig unearthed some bones, but police have confirmed they were not from a human.
Catcheway is only one of at least 164 indigenous women who have been reported missing since 1980, according to RCMP figures.
Another 1,017 indigenous women were the victims of homicides over that period. Those relatively high numbers have prompted calls for a national inquiry into the fate of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada – something the new Liberal government has pledged to address.
In Winnipeg, a volunteer effort called Drag the Red is using boats to scour the Red River for the remains of those missing. It, too, has been shut down for the season.
It’s not just women who have disappeared from Manitoba First Nations. This week, a rally was held for five men who have long been missing from the province’s north.
One of them, Glen Colombe, disappeared 26 years ago at the age of 16, but a recent tip has given the family a new area on which to focus their search.
Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson said families often believe their cases aren’t taken seriously enough by police.
“There’s a lot of mistrust between these families and police, and we need to work hard to build that up,” she said.
Police say they will keep investigating. And the Catcheways say they will never give up.
With a report from CTV Manitoba Bureau Chief Jill Macyshon
