'We just don't want it to be forgotten': Tina Fontaine's family, friends gather 3 years later

Three years after Tina Fontaine's body was pulled from the Red River near the Alexander Docks in Winnipeg, her cousin wants to see a permanent memorial there.

"Because it was pretty tragic, and there's still violence going on and things happening out in the streets, and we just don't want it to be forgotten,"Kattie-Lee Fontaine said on Thursday.

Tina Fontaine was 15 when she disappeared inAugust 2014. Her body was found near the docks on Aug. 17, 2014, eightdays after she was initially reported missing.

The dock site,at the end of Alexander Avenuebeside Fort Douglas Park, has been inaccessible to the public for years after an ice storm damaged the dock beyond repair.

Still, it's where family membersand Drag the Redhave gathered for years to remember Tina.

"It's something special," Kattie-Lee said of the spot. " I don't know how to explain it."

Kattie-Lee said it's been hard marking the anniversary year after year, but she wants people to remember what happened to her younger cousin. She organized the gathering for Thursday.

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About a dozen people came to to sing, drum, smudge and offer tobacco in Tina's memory, she said.

Kattie-Lee said those gathered came up with the idea for apermanent monument at the spot to honour Tina and Winnipeg's homeless hero Farron Hall. Hall rescued a teen from the water in 2009 and his bodywas found in the river the same weekend as Tina Fonatine's.

They plan to collect signatures to submit to the city in support of the idea.

"Just because how flooded it gets here and ugly, we're thinking of a monument so something would actually [stay] here and not get washed away from water," she said.

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