The bells above St. John’s Cathedral will ring out more than 1,000 times over the next three weeks to honour missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada.
Chimes will toll 1,017 times for each woman or girl murdered between 1980 and 2012, and 105 times for each woman or girl missing in suspicious circumstances.
“When people heard the bells, they would stop and it would bring them to a gathering place,” said St. John’s dean Scott Pittendrigh.
“We’re calling people to awareness to this issue, this cause, this concern for justice.”
The Saskatoon church, as part of an Anglican Church of Canada initiative, will ring the bells throughout five sessions spanning 22 days — Sunday, May 31 to Sunday June 21.
“We'll set a schedule and ring them in sets of about 225,” said the cathedral’s chime keeper Derwyn Crozier-Smith.
The bells begin on the same day Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission hosts its closing ceremonies in Ottawa and wrap up on National Aboriginal Day of Prayer.
