On Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Awareness Day, loved ones remember Tracy Day

Monday was Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Awareness Day. In Juneau, at events like this one — held in recognition of the epidemic of violence against Indigenous people — one name comes up consistently.

“I’m here because of Tracy Day,” said Kanaagoot’ Mike Kinville. He helped take care of Tracy Day when she was still a teenager. Decades later, she went missing at the age of 43. It’s been six years, and her family is still looking for her.

Monday night, advocates for missing and murdered Indigenous people gathered at Kaasei Healing Kootéeyaa, a totem pole created to be a space of healing from gender-based violence.

Those gathered wrote names of loved ones that have been the victims of violence on wood pieces carved out of a dugout canoe and burned them in the fire. 

“It is so hard for me when I see all these faces and all these names and all these families, the amount of pain that radiates out from that, you know, the hurt, the not knowing,” Kinville said. “It’s just — it’s almost crushing.”

Kaelyn Schneider is Tracy Day’s daughter. She has been raising awareness about her mother’s case via social media for years. She said that she feels disconnected from Lingít culture because her mother’s time teaching her was cut short. 

“I need people to understand that when Indigenous people go missing, it’s so much deeper than anyone realizes,” she said. “Not only are these our family members who we love and miss every single day, but these are the people who pass on sacred knowledge to the next generation of our family.”

Schneider said she’s grateful for the people who come together at gatherings like these to share their traditional knowledge with her family. She says they help the families of people lost to violence grapple with their unanswered questions as a community, and fill some of the space left behind.