Moose Hide Campaign Day about missing and murdered women marked by Langley’s Trinity Western University

Thursday, Feb. 11 is Moose Hide Campaign Day in remembrance and support of victims of domestic violence.

At Langley’s Trinity Western University, Patricia Victor, Sto:lo Elder and Director of TWU’s Institute of Indigenous Issues and Perspectives, said she hopes it will help increase community awareness.

It is “one way of walking together in a good way: learning, understanding and committing to support efforts to end violence against women and children,” Victor commented.

“My hope and prayer is that as our learning and understanding grows, our journey together will flourish.”

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As TWU Siya:m (a Sto:lo word describing a leader recognized for wisdom, integrity, and knowledge), Victor supports Aboriginal students as a coach and mentor, and works with faculty to ensure Aboriginal perspectives are integrated in all disciplines, providing opportunities for the TWU community to become sensitive and knowledgeable about Aboriginal worldview, history and culture.

“Our shared history reveals a broken relationship, but as all Canadians commit to hear the truth, to acknowledge that injustice has prevailed, and to walk together to find ways to reconcile, then all of our lives will be enriched,” Victor said.

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Moose Hide Campaign was created in 2011 by an Indigenous man named Paul Lacerte and his daughter Raven, who were hunting moose near the infamous Highway of Tears where many Indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing.

Together with family and friends, they cut up the moose hide into small squares and started the Moose Hide Campaign.

Years later, more than 1 million squares of moose hide have been distributed and the Moose Hide Campaign has spread to communities and organizations across Canada.

A group of Trinity Western Spartans athletes and alumni are teaming up to bring awareness to the issue of violence against women and children as part of the Moose Hide Campaign.

The group, led by Langley runner Nick Colyn, a TWU alum, and second-year Levi Osterwalder, will run a collective 725 kilometres, which is the same distance as northern B.C.’s Highway of Tears between Prince George and Prince Rupert.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of domestic violence are rising. Last year, 243 million women aged 15-49 suffered sexual and/or physical violence, according to UN stats.

Canadian Women’s Foundation reports that, approximately every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. Indigenous women are killed at six times the rate of non-Indigenous women.