‘Our women, they get lost on the street’: On the front lines of Edmonton’s Indigenous unhoused crisis – Ricochet Media
March 5 2026
On the frigid city streets, one woman, known as ‘Mama Bear,’ offers care and resistance as police intensify encampment crackdowns
Editors’ note: In January of 2024, journalist Brandi Morin was arrested and charged with obstruction for covering a police raid on an Indigenous unhoused encampment in Edmonton. Those charges were eventually dropped in the face of widespread outrage, and Brandi has continued to cover police actions across Canada without fear or favour. In this feature, she returns to the streets of Edmonton to check in on the city’s homelessness crisis.
It’s a chilly evening in February in Edmonton, Alberta. Minus three on the thermometer. On the city’s north side, across from the former Rexall Place — an arena that once housed thousands of people for hockey games and concerts — stands a temporary shelter capable of housing 100 people. The Maskokamik Lodge (formerly the Coliseum Inn) is run by Enoch Cree Nation, and opened in January 2024 in response to the spiraling crisis of homelessness in the city.
