NIPIGON — Sunday saw a sombre evening in the township as multiple communities came together to honour Alyssa Turnbull after her remains were found last month, three years and seven months after she went missing.
The evening saw family, friends, and neighbours come together in a healing circle to begin the healing process for a community that was struck by tragedy.
“I believe Nipigon was devastated for the last three and seven months, and for this to happen, I believe there's closure for family and for us,” said Tina Simmons, one of the organizers of the event. “So now we can just continue and just keep praying for the families.”
Simmons and the other organizers were heartened to see many members of the local communities arrive to pay their respects.
“I was very happy with the outcome,” she said. “With it being so cold there was a lot of people out and it made my heart very warm and yeah, I was very happy to see a lot of people out for that.”
The tragedy shook the community to its very core, according to Nipigon Mayor Suzanne Kukko, who said that a dark cloud has been hanging over the municipality since the initial disappearance of Turnbull.
“This kind of thing doesn't happen in a small town. You hear it a lot when you're [watching] TV and stuff. But when it does actually happen in your small town, It's very disturbing and shocking,” she said.
“And, I can remember a few years ago, while it was a couple of months after she had disappeared, and I was down at the Marina with my kids going for a hike and we saw a big police van with an officer who got out with cadaver dogs and it really hits you right in the gut that there is someone out there and God help her.”
As part of the healing circle, community members were given the chance to speak with a few pointing to the need to address issues like growing drug crime in the community that lead to tragedies and harm.
Kukko said that the issues facing the north shore are something that each community needs to stand together to combat and she was proud to see people from many neighbouring communities attend the circle to stand with the people who have lost so much.
“We need help, we need support and we need to solve these problems and it's not going to happen overnight. It's difficult but it's something that has to be worked on and taken very seriously,” she said.
“Because these types of things that happen, they happen because there's a dark side, you know, there's a dark side to our beautiful communities, and it's starting to take over and it's scary.”
While there is much work to be done to combat drug crime, Kukko said that she was glad that Turnbull's family is finally able to receive closure.
“I know in these types of situations, some families aren't that lucky to be able to have them back and to give them a proper burial and so we're really happy about that for the family, we're thinking about them and glad that they have closure,” she said.
“And I guess it's closure for Nipigon too, right? It's closure for our community as well. Like I said, the big cloud that's hung over us, now we know what happened.”