Month: May 2026

Relatives and friends of murdered and missing Indigenous Alaskans took their grief to the streets of Midtown Anchorage on Thursday.

The event was the third annual Walk for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People hosted by the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program at the University of Alaska Anchorage. 

Led by members of the Qissunamiut Yurartet Dancers of Chevak, participants walked along Providence Drive, in the heart of the UAA campus. Many held photos of their lost loved ones and signs with their names. Many participants also had painted red handprints across their mouths; the image is the symbol of Indigenous victims who have been silenced.

Scotty Barr was among them. His 10-year-old daughter, Ashley Johnson-Barr, was abducted while walking to a park in Kotzebue and murdered in 2018. Her killer was convicted and sentenced in 2021 to a 198-year prison term.

Barr wore a baseball cap emblazoned with his daughter’s name, birth date and the date of her death. The grieving family has since moved to Anchorage, he said.

Participating in the ANSEP walk was important, Barr said.

“We do live with a lot of evil in the world,” he said. “These kinds of activities and actions we can do for our future generation will help a lot.”

Tatiana Ticknor, program coordinator for the organization Data for Indigenous Justice, kicked off the event with an update of Alaska case numbers and resources for family members and friends. The organization is keeping its own tally of outstanding and unsolved cases, which differs somewhat from official state reports. Names of victims whose cases were being tracked by Data for Indigenous Justice were displayed on a screen in the meeting room where the group assembled before and after the walk.

Ticknor, who is Dena’inan, Deg Hit’an, and Lingit with family from Telida, Nondalton, and Sitka, said the cause is personal for her. Her cousin, Louis Palo, was shot and killed in 2023; the perpetrator has not been arrested, she said.

She pointed to a display of victims’ photographs and biographical information that had been assembled for the event. “It’s just a good way to remember who they were instead of how they passed away,” she said.

Antonia Commack, the resource coordinator for Data for Indigenous Justice, was among the speakers who closed the event with a call to action.

Commack said her advocacy began after two of her friends were murdered in separate crimes: Robin Gray in 2017 and Kristen Huntington in 2020.

“They’re the reason that I have the strength to do what I do. Unlike a lot of families in this room, their perpetrators were caught and they are in jail,” she said.

But in too many cases, perpetrators are not brought to justice, said Commack, who is Inupiaq and from Shungnak but now living in Wasilla.

“I know more than probably a lot of you how much justice Alaska Natives don’t get in the state of Alaska,” she said. Of the people whose photos were displayed, “a large chunk of their murderers have not been caught,” she said.

She urged attendees to keep up their activism, despite their weighty grief.

“I just ask that you try to take care of yourselves because we have to keep going, you have to fight for justice,” she said.

The ANSEP event was held in advance of Tuesday’s National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People. It is also known as Red Dress Day, for the red color that has become associated with the cause.

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