1 of 4 Cambria Harris searches for her mother’s body and tries to break with what she sees as crossgenerational trauma Photo: BRANDI MORIN Cambria Harris searches for her mother’s body and tries to break with what she sees as crossgenerational trauma Photo: BRANDI MORIN
After seven months with no word from her mother, 22yearold Canadian Cambria Harris found out a serial killer had killed her.
Not only that, the body was dumped among tons of trash at a landfill site in his hometown of Winnipeg, Canada.
Morgan Harris, Cambria Harris’ mother, wasn’t the killer’s only victim. He is also known to have killed three other indigenous women: Marcedes Myron, Rebecca Contois and the “Buffalo Woman” (name given to her by the community because her identity was unknown).
Winnipeg Police told Cambria Harris it was impossible to search the landfill for her mother’s body, but authorities recently backed down and said it could be done.
The process would take about three years and cost CA$184 million (about R$660 million), so the federal government decides whether or not to start the search something Cambria can’t even consider not doing.
The Association of Indigenous Women of Canada estimates that more than 4,000 Indigenous women have disappeared or been murdered in the past 30 years.
In 2019, a public inquiry commissioned by the Canadian government concluded that these women were victims of genocide fueled by government acts and omissions and fueled by the legacy of colonial ideologies.
Cambria Harris shares her mother’s story below.
On December 1st, 2022 I received a call. He was with the Winnipeg Police Service.
They took me to a building and when I went in, all my family was there: my sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and other people looking for my mother.
The manager of my reservations was there too. [indígena]Homicide detectives and Homicide detectives.
Alarm bells went off in my head in May as we searched emergency shelters and treatment centers for her, who has been missing for two months.
Morgan Harris, an Indigenous, vulnerable, homeless, single mother my mother was dead.
We were told by the police that forensic examinations determined that she had been murdered.
They showed me pictures of a landfill and said, ‘Look, your mother is under a pile of garbage and there’s nothing you can do. We’ll look you in the eye and say we won’t look for her.”
2 of 4 Cambria Harris alongside signs calling for justice and finding her mother’s body Photo: BRANDI MORIN Cambria Harris alongside signs calling for justice and finding her mother’s body Photo: BRANDI MORIN
My name is Cambria Harris and my spirit name is Flying Sparrow Woman of the West.
I was born and raised in Winnipeg, but am also a member of the Long Plain First Nation, where my family is from.
Fifteen months after I was born, my sister Kira arrived, and a few years later my sister Janelle and brother Seth.
Life was good in my early years. There wasn’t a day when my house was empty and I was always surrounded by aunts, uncles and all my cousins who lived on the block.
There wasn’t a day that the people in my house didn’t smile or laugh.
But one weekend when I was 6 years old, I came home and I was surrounded by the police.
They probably broke into my house or tried to arrest my mother for something and that day the childcare took me away.
I was told that I would be sleeping in an animal shelter for a long time. And yes, that was my reality until I was 18.
3 of 4 Cambria’s mother lived between the road and the shelters and had mental health issues Photo: BRANDI MORIN Cambria’s mother lived between the road and the shelters and had mental health issues Photo: BRANDI MORIN
My greatgreatgrandparents, pioneers on the Long Plain Nation, had to flee the Indian reservation because a government official assigned to care for the Indians failed to bring enough food.
They settled on the side of the road until construction crowded them out and ended up literally living on a dump.
My grandmother Rose was a victim and survivor of boarding school. That’s why she later became a victim of addiction.
My mother too: she took painkillers. She had started taking it years ago and continued to use it to prevent fainting.
There is an intergenerational trauma that is passed from mothers to children.
I was about 11 or 12 when my mom lost her heart her kids, her home, herself and ended up on the streets with a mental illness.
She has been in treatment and homeless shelters for as long as I can remember.
And then she was sent back onto the streets without the means to support herself.
They hand you over to the sharks and hope you’re okay.
My mother didn’t show up.
We looked for them under bridges where there were makeshift camps where no one was supposed to live; We go to bars where nobody should be, to spooky houses and abandoned buildings where gang violence reigns.
But none of those dark places kept my family away, so we kept searching and knocking on doors whenever we could.
In May we learned of the murder of Rebecca Contois, whose body was found in a dump.
It was very disturbing and shocking to learn that the serial killer might be roaming the streets.
I was afraid that my mother might be another victim of his.
Months went by with no clues or anything.
Until December, when we were wanted by the police.
A big part of my pain is not having his remains. They tell me my mother is dead, but where is she?
Although she was killed, she needs to be recovered, as does Marcedes Myran, for this dump is essentially an unnamed grave.
I went to the dump and held ceremonies. It’s been hard keeping track of where my mom is likely to be. And you can’t do anything. You can’t start looking. It bothers me.
4 of 4 Cambria Harris, now 22, gave birth at 18 Photo: BRANDI MORIN Cambria Harris, now 22, gave birth at 18 Photo: BRANDI MORIN
I got pregnant in my senior year of high school. It was really scary. My mother gave birth to me when I was 18 and that’s when I got pregnant. I was very worried about what my future might look like because of what had happened to my brothers.
I grew up with an ingrained fear that my daughter would be taken away from me because I became pregnant as a teenager.
I manage to break these cycles of trauma that have been wrongly passed down from generation to generation. And my greatest gain will be making sure my daughter never has to go through what I went through.