Family searches for man missing on island in traditional healing journey

Travis Damon Thomas is shown in a handout photo. Occasionally, the 41-year-old who is listed as a missing person by the RCMP has been spotted. (Alfred Dick-Facebook/The Canadian Press)

Family and friends believe Thomas was dealing with deeper mental illness than they were aware of

The evidence of Travis Damon Thomas’s survival is scarce but his uncle says it’s scattered around a remote island off the coast of Vancouver Island: a circle of footprints, the remains of a sea urchin, a burned log.

Occasionally, the 41-year-old who is listed as a missing person by the RCMP has been spotted.

Thomas was sent to Bartlett Island near Tofino in July as part of an Indigenous tradition to help him heal from addiction and other ailments, said Alfred Dick, his uncle.

But the traditional method of the Ahousaht First Nation didn’t go as planned, Dick said, when Thomas didn’t return home after two weeks.

“Something just went awry on this one,” Dick said.

Seven months later, friends and family visit the island daily to leave food and other supplies for Thomas and try to coax him home.

“When we start a healing journey within our nation — if you’re having troubles, maybe addiction or something of that sort — we usually bring them to an island or isolated area where they can be by themselves and find themselves for roughly about two weeks before we let anyone join them and start helping and counselling them,” Dick said from the island as he dropped off supplies.

“He got put on the island and when they come to check on him he wasn’t around. All the signs were here that he was here, but he was nowhere to be seen, he went into the bush.”

Difficult search

Family and friends now believe Thomas was dealing with deeper mental illness than they were aware of. He had also faced several devastating challenges in recent years including the death of his wife, Dick said.

The island, which is only about 1.5 kilometres long and 700 metres wide, has regularly been used as a site for traditional healing but members of the First Nation usually stick to the beaches instead of the dense inland forest.

The RCMP say Thomas was last seen on the island on Aug. 7. When he couldn’t be found, his family conducted its own search.

The evidence of Thomas’s survival is scarce but his uncle says it’s scattered around a remote island off the coast of Vancouver Island: a circle of footprints, the remains of a sea urchin, a burned log. (Alfred Dick-Facebook/The Canadian Press)

Dick said five days was the longest stretch of time that passed without any evidence of Thomas.

RCMP ground and air patrols, local search and rescue teams, and the Canadian Coast Guard have conducted an extensive but unsuccessful search. On Oct. 18, more than 200 ground search volunteers and 20 vessels combed the island and surrounding waters, the RCMP say.

“Our search is unfortunately very difficult given the island’s extremely dense forest and brush area,” Sgt. Todd Pebernat says in the statement issued in November, which the Mounties say still stands when they were asked for an interview earlier this month.

Mental state unknown

The missing person file remains open and while the formal search has been suspended, local efforts continue.

The Mounties say they have no information to suggest Thomas had left the island but “are alive to the possibility that he may no longer be there.”

“The desire to find Mr. Thomas remains within all of us. To this end, the RCMP has maintained its presence of trail cameras on the island and examines any new reports of possible sightings or compelling leads,” the statement says.

Elder Dave Frank, who is a cultural support worker with Ahousaht’s wellness department, said he believes Thomas just needs more time.

“Without seeing him or talking to him, I don’t know what his mental state is right now. On a physical state, he’s doing OK,” Frank said.

When an individual is sent to the island, it’s a decision made by the family, he said. But the department provides support, including sending a counsellor to the island for one-on-one time with the individual, he said.

“Where I come from, we live in the best of two worlds. We live in a Western society with Western expertise and medical and all those things, and we also live in a world of the old ways too,” he said.

‘It changes you’

Providing an individual with supplies is also newer practice, he said, because in the past a person would only be left with tools and medicine.

The department leaves it up to the family to decide when a loved one is ready to return home.

There have been cases when a family has pulled the individual back early because he or she appears to be suffering instead of healing, he said, and there are cases where someone hasn’t returned home for one or two years.

There have been more successful cases than failed ones, he said.

“When you get out there, it changes you, you’re forced to look within yourself,” he said. “They begin to take a look at themselves and move forward.”

About half a dozen family and friends visit the island every day and Thomas’s Facebook page express love and affection for him.

“We’re just praying and hoping that he comes to us soon,” Dick said.

Amy Smart · The Canadian Press · Posted: Mar 17, 2019 by CBC News

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Justin Trudeau Berated at Hill Gathering over Missing, Murdered Women Inquiry

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood quietly with his head down Wednesday as families expressed extreme anger toward him about the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

Trudeau must reset the inquiry led by four commissioners, Maggie Cywink from Whitefish River First Nation said in a speech to an annual gathering on Parliament Hill.

“If you want to be remembered as a prime minister who is healing ties with First Nations, then you must start with our women and families,” said Cywink, whose sister, Sonya Cywink, was found slain near London, Ont. in 1994.

“Will you be seen as yet another politician, in the very long list of politicians, who simply peddled in the age-old craft of empty promises?

The government’s version of reconciliation looks a lot like colonization, said Connie Greyeyes from Fort Saint John, B.C.

“How do you come out here and say that you support families?” she said.

“How dare you come out here and say these things?”

Before Trudeau began to address the audience, someone in the crowd urged that he “go home.”

He went on to thank family members for sharing their frustration and for challenging him to do better.

“The missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls inquiry is something that I have long believed in, long supported,” he said. “It was never going to be easy.”

His wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, told family members she can’t imagine what it is like to lose a loved one for “senseless reasons.”

“I stand here before you as a woman, as a mother, as a fellow Canadian, as a human being,” she said. “We are suffering with you.”

One of the inquiry’s commissioners, Michele Audette, attended the Hill event.

The Canadian Press, October 5, 2017

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MMIWG Families Slam ‘Colonial’ Inquiry Process, Demand Hard Reset

Marion Buller chief commissioner of national inquiry. (CP)

Relatives, supporters says their concerns have been ignored by commissioners, minister

Dozens of family members, activists and academics have written an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demanding the “deeply misguided” inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls be scrapped and restarted with a new panel of commissioners.

The coalition says relatives have been shut out of the process and that commissioners are on a path that will not lead to the successful fulfillment of the inquiry’s mandate.

“They have continually dismissed our concerns, refused to take steps to rebuild trust, and have maintained a deeply misguided approach that imposes a harmful, colonial process on us,” the letter reads. “This has and continues to create trauma as well as insecurity and a lack of safety for our families, communities, and loved ones.”

Families wrote a letter complaining about being excluded three months ago, but say their deep-seated concerns were ignored. The letter was used only to pit families against families, the coalition said.

Families and supporters are also accusing Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett of dismissing their concerns.

A statement from the minister’s office said the government remains committed to ending the “ongoing national tragedy,” and that the inquiry’s terms of reference require that families be central to the commission’s work.

After meeting with the commissioners, Bennett was satisfied they had a plan and dedication to address families’ concerns, which will adapt as the inquiry progresses.

‘Immediate action’

The statement said the government is working in the meantime with Inuit, First Nations and Métis partners to honour the lost and to advance reconciliation.

“We’ve taken immediate action with a new gender-based violence strategy, changes to the child and family welfare system for Indigenous children, safe housing, shelters and work with British Columbia towards safe transport on the Highway of Tears,” the statement reads.

The inquiry has been plagued with problems, including staff departures and last month’s resignation by Marilyn Poitras, a Métis professor at the University of Saskatchewan. She cited issues with the “current structure” of the inquiry, which is set to get underway this fall.

But the letter from relatives and supporters says too much damage has been done and too much time has lapsed to rebuild trust now.

Instead of drawing on Indigenous knowledge and practices, the inquiry has been rooted in a colonial model that prioritizes a Eurocentric medical and legal framework, it reads.

“Such an approach is rooted in a broader culture of colonial violence that is inherently exploitative towards Indigenous peoples and causes ongoing trauma and violence for us as families,” the letter says.

Health, legal and community relations team workers for the inquiry are scheduled to be in two Saskatchewan cities this week to meet with families who wish to participate.

The teams are in Regina and Saskatoon to get in contact with families who want to participate in the truth gathering process which will be held in Saskatoon in November.

Source: CBC News

Mounties Issue Plea for Help from Small Community to Find Girl’s Killer

Leah Anderson, a 15-year-old girl who was brutally slain and left on a snowy trail in Gods Lake Narrows, Man., in 2013. (RCMP photo)

The Canadian Press | July 18, 2017 

GODS LAKE NARROWS, Man. — RCMP have issued a plea on social media for help from a small, isolated Manitoba community to find the killer in their midst.

Manitoba Mounties posted on their Facebook page Tuesday the story of Leah Anderson, a 15-year-old girl who was brutally slain and left on a snowy trail in Gods Lake Narrows, Man., in 2013.

Her body was in such bad shape it was initially thought she had been attacked by wolves or dogs, but eventually investigators concluded she had been viciously beaten.

At first, RCMP asked volunteers to submit DNA samples, conducted interviews and even did lie detector tests, but one by one the suspects were ruled out.

However, on Tuesday, Mounties posted they have made “significant advancements” in the investigation.

They said they have narrowed down the remaining suspects and determined that the killer was a male and known to Anderson, but said they need the Cree community to “come together” with any new information that might lead to an arrest.

Located 550 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, Gods Lake Narrows is accessible only by air or ice road in the winter.

The night Leah died started out as a typical one for the “bright, happy” teenager, Mounties said.

“Hey hey hey, you you you, how are you?” she kidded with a friend in her last post on Facebook.

She had planned to meet up with a buddy to go skating but the plans fell through so she headed toward the rink by herself at 7:30 p.m.

“Somewhere between her door and the arena, Leah met her killer,” said the RCMP. “He brutally beat her and left her dead on a snowmobile/walking trail.”

Her remains were found two days later.

“The popular, funny girl with so much potential was gone,” said the RCMP. “Not only was the community dealing with the grief of losing Leah, they had to come to terms with the brutal manner of her death and the fact that in their isolated community, where the ice road in and out was closed, the killer was still there.”

It was another blow for a family that had already endured much heartache. Leah’s father, Gilbert Duke, was slain when she was little, and she and her siblings went into foster care until an aunt and uncle in Gods Lake Narrows took them in.

In recent days, friends and relatives have been posting remembrances and pictures leading up to the RCMP’s announcement of a renewed push in the case.

For some, it has been tough.

“They say they have a suspect but shouldn’t because they have no actual evidence against him,” Eleanor Duke posted to the RCMP page. “I just want my sister to be at rest and for my family to get the justice she so truly deserves.”

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Thunder Bay Police Rejects First Nation Leaders’ Call for RCMP Probe of River Deaths

APTN National News | June 7, 2017

The acting chief of the beleaguered Thunder Bay police force rejected a call from First Nation leaders for the RCMP to step in and investigate three waterway deaths in the city.

Thunder Bay police acting Chief Sylvie Hauth said during a press conference Wednesday that she did not believe it to be “practical” or “necessary” to call in the Mounties.

The Ontario government has said only Hauth, as acting police chief, has the power to call in the RCMP.

Hauth became acting chief after the Ontario Provincial Police charged Thunder Bay police Chief J.P. Levesque with obstruction of justice and breach of trust after he allegedly disclosed confidential information about the city’s mayor Keith Hobbs.

First Nation leaders have said the local Indigenous community has no confidence in the Thunder Bay police or the OPP to investigate the deaths of Indigenous people.

Nishnawbe Aski Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, Grand Council Treaty 3 Ogichidaa Francis Kavanaugh and Rainy River First Nations Chief Jim Leonard last week called on the RCMP to investigate the deaths of: Tammy Keeash, 17, who was living in a group home and found dead in the Neebing-McIntyre Floodway on May 7; Josiah Begg, 14, who was found dead in the McIntyre River on May 18; and Stacy DeBungee, who was found dead in the McIntyre River on Oct. 19, 2015.

The chiefs could not be immediately reached for comment.

Hauth said the OPP completed a review of how the city police handled the DeBungee investigation on May 15. The Thunder Bay police said earlier Wednesday there were no plans to release the report.

The Thunder Bay police botched the handling of DeBungee’s death investigation, according to private investigator David Perry, a former senior Toronto homicide detective. Thunder Bay detectives shut the file on DeBungee, declaring it to be accidental, before the conclusion of an autopsy examination.

Perry discovered DeBungee’s debit card was used after his death and that his identification cards were strewn on the river bank near where he was found mixed in with the identification material of another individual who has not yet been found.

Hauth said the OPP review now also extends to the Keeash and Begg deaths.

Serious questions still remain around the deaths of three of seven First Nation youth who were the subject of a coroner’s inquest which ended in June 2016. Five of the seven youth died in Thunder Bay’s waterways and three of those deaths were found to be “undetermined” by the coroner’s jury.

Perry told APTN it’s highly possible foul play may be behind some of these river deaths.

The Thunder Bay police now says it is investigating whether Indigenous youth are being targeted.

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