Suicide prevention walk to conclude at Regina Legislature after more than 600 kilometres

Tristen Durocher began walking on July 2. More than 600 kilometres later, he’s nearing the end of his journey.

The 24-year-old’s walk from La Loche to the Saskatchewan Legislature in protest of the provincial government’s refusal to pass suicide prevention legislation reaches its destination on Friday.

Durocher walked many long days over the past month, with some days lasting 13 hours and accumulating nearly 50 kilometres.

“Saying this is a beautiful cause … is not enough,” Durocher said. “Actually do something.”

A Mtis fiddler, Durocher first became aware of Saskatchewan’s high suicide numbers after being asked to play for a number of funerals.

He said the Saskatchewan government has an unacceptable pattern of indifference.

“You can ask yourself, why did an entire party, all 44 members, unanimously vote down a suicide prevention piece of legislation and is the only sitting government in Canada to ever do that,” Durocher said.

“We’re a rich province. We’re a technological province. We’re ‘civilized,’ educated, advanced but when we have indifference, it kills. It’s lethal and it needs to end.”

The end of a journey

As his walking journey comes to an end Friday, Durocher is optimistic.

“This day is going to be beautiful because we have a lot of supporters who have been with us for a long time,” he said.

Throughout his journey, Durocher said supporters donated to their cause online and even drove out to meet the ‘Walking with Our Angels’ group with supplies.

“All of the background people who were helping to push us to this point have actually come out to join us for this last little leg of the walk and it’s so nice to see all of their faces,” he said.

Durocher hopes the end of the walk will be a powerful image of the forces working against the problem of suicide plaguing the province.

“I want them to see the crowd gathered and know that a lot of these people really do care about the demographics that are susceptible to suicide,” Durocher said. “About the demographics that are hopeless and are having suicidal ideations and a lot of these people have been working tirelessly with those demographics.”

He said the walk is about action.

“The government doesn’t need to be made aware of what’s going on, they know exactly what’s going on and they’re still doing nothing. This is the public’s education,” he explained.

“This is going to show people how much people care but beyond just words and lip service are actually trying to make a difference, are actually walking and not just talking.”

Durocher said the journey he began in La Loche has been difficult, but there was beauty in it.

“Very meditative, quite profound in the friendships that have formed along the journey,” he said.

Along the way, the group encountered several people who joined their walk and shared their own stories.

“We’ve met people from all over Saskatchewan who care about this, who are working tirelessly to address this and who are doing everything they can to help people,” Durocher said.

“I’ve even met people who work with crisis response teams who go to calls and arrive at houses where people are ready to take their lives. I’ve met the literal angels keeping us on life support and it’s been so beautiful to find our saints in hiding.”

Durocher has received nearly 100 photos from people across the province who have lost their loved ones to suicide.

He said some are as young as 10 years old.

“A lot of them, you could see just so much light and happiness and love and hope in their eyes that it was easy for them to mask what was underneath that,” Durocher said.

“That’s what we really need to understand, even when somebody’s smiling they may not be okay and we need to listen to them with our hearts,”

He said it’s important to not simply accept someone is okay because they say, “I’m fine.”

“When you feel that somebody’s not fine, they’re probably not fine,” Durocher said.

“Stay with them, have tea with them, visit them, help them, love them, support them, be with them.”

Durocher advocates a vote for change

Durocher encouraged people in the province to use their voting power to create change.

Minister of Rural and Remote Health Warren Kaeding said he’s willing to meet with Durocher when he reaches the Legislature.

But this isn’t enough for Durocher.

“I plan on meeting with him but he wanted to meet me just by myself and with no media and just a private discussion,” he said.

“That to me is not constructive at all. I don’t speak on behalf of the entire north.”

Durocher said the minister should be meeting with those who are on the front lines, working with at-risk demographics.

“He needs to speak with them. He has no right to sit with me in a room for half an hour, call that a consultation and walk away. I won’t give him that opportunity.”

“He’ll meet with the collective or he won’t meet with me at all,” Durocher said.

Dead owls ‘a bridge’

Durocher has travelled all over Canada but it wasn’t until this journey that he saw a dead owl.

In fact, Durocher saw eight dead owls over the past month.

“They’re supposed to be messengers and they’re supposed to also offer protection to a lot of people,” Durocher explained.

He called the sightings a bridge.

“When they lose loved ones, they actually pray with an owl feather.”

With the walking portion of his work complete, Durocher will begin a hunger strike upon reaching the Legislature. He plans to fast until meaningful suicide prevention legislation is introduced.

For now, however, Durocher is looking forward to rest.

“I’m looking forward to being in the tipi, because then I could be just by myself. I could meditate, I could sleep, I could dream. I could get the rest that I haven’t gotten for the entire month,” he said.