Couple walking cross Canada in support of MMIP gets send-off from Kahnawake – Yahoo News Canada

August 24, 2023

A couple walking across Canada to raise awareness for the violence Indigenous people have to live with every day has run into car trouble and have discovered the language barrier in Quebec can cause some very real walls to go up after leaving Kahnawake on Sunday.

Before they left Kahnawake, however, they received a symbolic walk-off from community members on Saturday afternoon. The Kahnawake delegation included members of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake.

“That was really cool. It was really nice to have been accepted and we felt very welcomed in the community,” said Charity West.

Charity and her husband Cameron West are an Indigenous couple from British Columbia and are walking across Canada after leaving a First Nation in Alberta in early May. The couple arrived in Kahnawake last week and stayed a few days while Cameron was recovering from an illness. They left Sunday and picked up their trek, which is slated to wrap up in Newfoundland in October.

“We just arrived in Wendake, and we are stopped here because we are having some car trouble. The car started giving us trouble near Trois-Rivieres, but we couldn’t really get any help because of the language barrier,” Charity said in a phone interview Tuesday. “So, we just called someone in Wendake we knew might be able to help, we got in touch with them and here we are.”