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Katherena Vermette (1)
Katherena Vermette
Born to a Métis father and a Mennonite mother, Katherena Vermette grew up in Winnipeg’s predominantly Indigenous North End. “I spent years trying to run away… before I realized there was no other place I wanted to be—or could be, really,” she said in a 2013 interview. North End Love Songs, her first poetry collection, won a 2013 Governor General’s Award, and The Break, her first novel, won a Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature. Her acclaimed short film this river, co-directed with Erika MacPherson, profiles Drag the Red, a grassroots, volunteer-driven initiative to search for missing Indigenous people.
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this riverErika MacPherson & Katherena Vermette 2016 19 minThis short documentary offers an Indigenous perspective on the devastating experience of searching for a loved one who has disappeared. Volunteer activist Kyle Kematch and award-winning writer Katherena Vermette have both survived this heartbreak and share their histories with each other and the audience. While their stories are different, they both exemplify the beauty, grace, resilience, and activism born out of the need to do something.
