ALYSSA, 18

‘E veryone there was crying,” Alyssa says. She was one of more than 1,000 people who came out to pay tribute to Tina Fontaine, the teenager found in the river last summer. The event was at the Alexander Docks where her body was discovered.

“People were handing out bows and we had to put them on the memorial. I think they were red. They were handing out sweetgrass, too.”

She went at the urging of her grandmother. “Why not just go out and support our people?” she told her.

Like some of her classmates, Alyssa grew up on the reserve at Lake St. Martin, but was evacuated to Winnipeg after the 2011 flooding. No more attending Bible camp or riding ATVs through the woods. She now lives in the city with her older sister.

And she worries. Her sister has a job at a community centre and often travels home from work alone.

“She used to go out and not tell me where she’s going. I said, ‘Why are you doing that? You could go missing and no one would know.’ ”

Alyssa says her grandmother encourages her to speak out more publicly about the missing and murdered aboriginal women, “so that it doesn’t happen to any of our younger family members.”

But she wants more than just “a lot of talk.”

“I saw that video of Rinelle Harper speaking and people were posting, ‘Oh, the police already are doing enough, they don’t need a national inquiry.’ I commented, because I was mad, and said, ‘Well, what are they doing? Please explain to me what has been done.’

“This is a problem that has been going on for more than 30 years. It needs to be addressed and action should be taken immediately.”