One particular night, it was a Friday night in May, and at that time I didn't have a cellphone. I had gone to this one club just on Jasper Ave, because there were a few clubs I would always frequent, because those were the areas, I guess, where I knew people. It was early in the night, probably around 7 p.m., when I went to this EDM club. When I got there, keep in mind, I was sober. I didn't have any drinks in me at that point. Because it was still early in the night, there was really nobody there. From that club I started walking to another club, which would be probably about six or seven blocks away down Jasper Ave.

As I'm walking, there's this vehicle that drove past me, and the first time it kind of caught my attention, because I heard bass coming from the vehicle. Of course, the music was catchy. I'm like, "Oh right, that person's probably having a good time." Anyways, I keep walking, and again I notice this vehicle, the same vehicle, drive past me. The second time, they had their window down, and they were like, "Hey." I kind of glanced and saw it was a male who was by himself. All I noticed was his smile. I just kind of waved, like, "Okay, whatever," and kept walking.

This time I was probably about a block and a half away from the club I was walking to, and that same vehicle was parked down the block, so it could meet me, I guess. They were facing Jasper Ave, and again they were honking their horn, calling me over, so I went walking up to the vehicle. Of course, as I approached, all I could see was this person's smile. They're asking what I'm up to, where I'm going, who I'm with. It wasn't uncommon for me to cross paths with people that would ask me questions like that, because at that time, again, I was going out every weekend meeting new people. Having that conversation was just, like, normal. I didn't feel a threat. I didn't feel like this person was harmful.

Another thing that really caught my attention was, as I got closer to the vehicle and closer to that person, their vehicle was super clean. They had this interior light that was flashy, you know, going with the music, the bass. Just that alone was kind of giving me this feeling, like, this person is a good person, right? You know, you judge people on what you see. I immediately thought, this person's chill, this person's, you know, club, whatever.

They were asking me where I was going, who I was with. I told them I had just left from this place, I was going to this place now, I was going to meet up with some friends, go have some drinks, it's the weekend. Immediately they were like, "Well, I have some drinks, do you want to come with me?" I just remember looking down Jasper Ave and seeing the club I was going to go to, then looking back at this person. This person was male, non-Indigenous, not from this country, dark skin. I'm thinking maybe he was either Arab or maybe Pakistani, somewhere near that ethnicity. Again, it was just like, okay, this person wants to go have some drinks. They said they were going to take me back to the club after we had some drinks. It was just going to be a chill time. Again, you know, no red flags were going off. I didn't feel any danger. I felt like this was going to be an okay situation, so I jumped into the vehicle with him.

This was early 2008. Even though I grew up in the city, I really didn't know the south side as much as I did the north side. Now when I think back to it, because I know Edmonton, this person drove me to the Holiday Inn on Gateway Blvd, just off of Whitemud. When he pulled up to this hotel, it was going onto 9 o'clock, between 8:30 and 9:00. He takes me up to his room, and sure enough, he has a bottle of Crown Royal. He gets some ice, and he's talking to me the whole time. Again, when people are, like, engaging in conversation, there's no red flags going off, there's no alarms going off. We're hanging out, we're getting to know each other as people.

He pours me a cup, and I have the first drink. He goes to the bathroom, comes out, and again he's engaging with small talk or whatever. As my glass is done, he suggests that he wants to make me another glass. I say sure. I get up to go to the bathroom, and at that time, when I think back to it, I wasn't really aware what date rape drugs were, or that it was even common. I went to the bathroom, I came back out, my cup's filled, and I take another drink. That's the last thing I remember.

I honestly don't know how long I was out for. The next thing you know, I'm waking up, I'm laying on the bed, my pants and my underwear are down, my belt's undone, and I'm disoriented. I see that I'm still in the hotel room, and I look toward the window and it's dark outside. As I'm still trying to focus my eyes, this man comes out of the bathroom, and this time he's in a robe. When I think back to it now, again, I'm thinking, he obviously did something to me, and now he has just taken a shower.

I'm trying to sit up, pushing my legs off the bed so I can try to stand up and pull up my pants and whatnot. At the same time I'm asking him, "What happened? What did you do to me? What's going on? Why are you coming out of the bathroom in a robe?" I can't remember exactly what he was responding, because, mind you, I had just woken up and I was still disoriented. By the time I got my pants up and I'm buckling my belt, I'm starting to cry, I'm starting to freak out, and I'm yelling at him, calling him a rapist. I'm asking him what the hell he did to me. What I do remember him saying is, "I'm going to drive you home, I'm going to drive you home, let's go."

We walk down to the lobby, and by the time we get there I'm feeling very intoxicated. Let's keep in mind, I only had one small glass of alcohol, which wouldn't have made me disoriented. We get down to the lobby and head to his vehicle. Now the sun is starting to come up, the sky colour is starting to become blue. When I think back to even that moment, going from 9 p.m. to now it's like 5 in the morning, I was out for that length of time. That's, like, what, about eight hours of being unconscious.

Again, I'm crying, he's driving me to my cousin's place. Once I get to my cousin's place, I'm waking her up, we're sitting in her room, and I tell her what happened. As I'm telling her, I'm like, "Ugh, my body, it just feels so..." I didn't have control over my body. I just remember swaying back and forth. She's encouraging me to go to the hospital, to go make a police report, to do a rape kit test. I was carrying so much shame, I felt so guilty, I felt like it was my fault. I was like, "No, I don't want to go to the RCMP, I don't want to go to the hospital, I don't want to do any of that." In fact, in that moment I just felt like I wanted to drink.

From that moment of May 2008 up until, I think, February of 2009, my addiction really spiraled out of control. Now that I think about it, it was because of what happened to me. If I didn't have those certain people that came into my life to say, "Hey, there's something going on here, you have a problem, let's get you out of this situation," I don't know where I would have ended up.

Also reflecting on that actual morning of me waking up, there was a video that had gone viral last year where this girl, this Indigenous young woman, was zip-tied in a hotel in Winnipeg. It made me think of what happened to me, being in a hotel, by this person who, I guess, had a motive. He knew what he was doing. He targeted me because I was vulnerable, I was by myself. To be able to be sitting here and still share this, I feel so grateful, because there are circumstances where women are drug-raped and they end up either in a dumpster or a landfill, or their body is chopped up and left in a bag, and they don't have that moment to share. Again, reflecting back to that day, I didn't have a cellphone, I went out to the club by myself, nobody in my family knew where I was going or who I would be with. That situation, going with this complete stranger and having that happen to me, it could have been a whole lot worse. It was a really horrible experience, but again, to be able to be sitting here and to have that moment to share...

I held onto that guilt and that shame for such a long time, because I always thought it was my fault. Like, I was so stupid to think that this person was safe to go with. Really, it's not my fault. That person was a rapist. It had nothing to do with me being left by myself, it had nothing to do with me wanting to have drinks, it had nothing to do with what I was even wearing. Mind you, that night I was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, a denim jacket, a belt, runners. I wasn't dressed, you know, provocatively, and even if I was, that situation happened because that person was a predator, that person was a rapist. They already had a motive, they already had a plan of what they were going to do, because they had the drugs, they had the alcohol, they had the hotel room. They presented themselves as this safe person, they targeted me, and that is what happened.

I guess my final message, unless you have more questions, is that if situations like this happen, it's never your fault, and speak up, because for the longest time I held that experience in. I think the first time I spoke it out loud in front of a crowd was in 2024. It had almost been twenty years before I actually shared that experience. I got to share it when I was invited to present at the Kikiwin Health Services STBBI youth conference, and I had to think about how I could share a story that aligns with the STBBI stigma and conversation. When I think back to that moment, when that happened to me, I didn't even go get tested. I didn't go to the hospital to get tested, I didn't, you know, anything. I could have even ended up pregnant. I could have ended up with an STI that probably wasn't curable. Thankfully I'm okay in terms of that, but when things like that happen and a predator attacks you in that way, it's never your fault. You know, it's never your fault. Don't carry that guilt, because those people, they do that because that's just who they are. It doesn't reflect on who you are as a person. I just wanted to share that.

Even when I shared it that day at that conference, it just so happened that we were at the Delta on Gateway and Whitemud, and right across the street was that hotel. Being able to not only speak my story out loud to a group of people, but that full circle moment of "I'm still here." That happened to me, and it did cause me to spiral, but now I'm stronger and now I'm more braver, and now I can not only speak for myself but for others, and hopefully encourage others that may have gone through the same thing to speak up as well. I feel like the more that we speak up and share, the more we're putting light onto the situation. We're warriors, right? We're warriors, and when warriors gather, great things can happen. We can start pointing out who these people are who caused this harm. I know I'm never going to cross paths with this person again, because they're a complete stranger, but even in terms of, like, our communities, we need to speak up. We need to speak up against these people that cause harm to our people or to each other, and just put light onto it so that it stops.

To this day I don't like staying at hotels, especially if I'm by myself. When I do travel, I prefer to stay in Airbnbs. A really good example of how hotels are a hotspot for human trafficking is that in December of 2024, I had travelled from the Lakeland to Edmonton, and it was last minute. I was going to stay at a hotel that I had already previously stayed at, because of that I knew the place was safe. I went onto Priceline and all I saw was the Best Western, and I immediately thought it was the location on Elderslake. I clicked on it, I booked it, and then I drove to Elderslake and was going to check in. When I got there, the receptionist told me it was the wrong location, and I had actually booked at the Best Western on Gateway and 51st Ave. Again, it was 9 o'clock at night, it was wintertime, it was just me and my daughter. I'm like, okay, I already booked it, it's non-refundable, I'll just go to that location and the next day I'll go somewhere else.

Anyways, as I'm pulling up to this other Best Western, as soon as I was pulling into the parking lot, immediately, immediately, I just felt danger. I felt my anxiety skyrocket. I went to the front doors. I had two sets of keys, so I locked the vehicle, my daughter was sleeping, and I walked into this hotel. The way they had it set up is like this long hallway. This hallway turns into another hallway, so there's, like, a corner to go down this hallway, and then this hallway brings you to where the check-in desk is. As soon as I saw that, I'm like, "There's too much distance happening right now from this desk to the entrance." Even that alone was a red flag for me.

I went walking down to this desk, and the way even the check-in desk was set up, it was like a podium, just this podium-like desk type of thing, and in the background it was like, what do you call it, those wall dividers. It didn't even have the Best Western logo on it. It was just this wall divider and this podium, and there's one man standing there asking me who I am, blah blah blah. As he's trying to engage with me, there's a set of elevators, and at the elevators there were these stacks of mattresses. Immediately, as he's trying to talk to me, I'm looking at these mattresses, and I'm like, "Oh, you have a bunch of mattresses here, what's going on?" He's like, "Oh, we're just doing renovations." Again, I'm like, red flags.

Then he's asking for my ID, so I give him my ID. Then he's asking me for the deposit. I told him I had a debit Visa, he said they only take credit cards, and I said, "Well, this is all I have." He's like, "Well, we'll do cash." As he's telling me they only accept cash as deposit, there's these two Indigenous girls, little girls, probably 12 and maybe 15, coming down from that hallway when you first walk in. The younger one is holding a stuffed animal, and she was barefoot, no shoes, no socks. The other one had a tank top on, but she had shoes on. She's, you know, whispering in her ear, like, "We're just going to grab something to eat and then we're going to go back up," kind of thing. I'm watching this, noticing the no shoes, noticing the older one was kind of, I guess, guiding her, or making sure, whatever.

Then the receptionist told me the ATM machine was beside the vending machines. When I asked him where that was, he pointed just past the elevators, where these girls were walking to. I went walking up to the ATM, and as I'm walking past these two young girls, again the older one is rushing her, like, "What do you want to eat? Pick something." The younger one, you could tell she was really scared. She wasn't saying anything. She was hanging onto this stuffed animal really tight. I pulled out the money, and again I'm just watching these girls. As I get the money, I walked past them, and again the younger one wasn't saying anything, the older one was still trying to get her to pick something from the vending machine.

As I'm walking back to this desk, now there's a woman behind the desk, and on the other side there's a man. These people are either Pakistani or Arab. The guy on the other side of the desk was dressed like he was going to the club. He had the bracelets, the necklace, a polo shirt, his hair was slicked back, he had dress shoes, dress pants. He's talking to the two employees, and as I get closer he looks at me and he's like, "Go ahead." I questioned him. I said, "Oh, do you work here?" He was like, "Yeah, I do." It didn't really make sense to me that he would work there, because, like I said, he was dressed like he was going out to the club, and the people on the other side of the desk had Best Western attire on. Again, my radar is going off.

I approach the desk and I'm handing over the deposit to the man that was initially helping me from the beginning. As I'm handing him the deposit, he starts asking for my ID again. I said, "I already gave you my ID, why do you need my ID again?" When I questioned him, he got irritated and started raising his voice, like, "Well, I need to make sure that," whatever. He was just like, "I just need your ID." As he's engaging with me, I see that his voice is getting elevated, he's getting irritated. There's a woman standing there looking at me, there's this other man behind me watching while this is happening, and those two little girls are still over here. As this is all happening, again, my anxiety level is going up, I'm starting to feel afraid, and I just said, "You know what, forget it. I'm not going to stay here. Even though there's no refund, you can keep that. I'm not going to stay here."

I walked away and went into my vehicle. As soon as I jumped in, I drove to the end of the parking lot of this building. When I got there, all of a sudden the lights turned on, because when I first pulled into this parking lot it was pitch black. Now that I'm at the end of the parking lot, all of these lights turn on, the parking lot lights. It was almost like, I don't know how to say this, but like my ancestors putting light on me, like, "You're okay, you're safe." I parked my vehicle, but then I was shaking. I was shaking, I started crying, I was hyperventilating. I think it had to do with, again, what happened to me, but also because now I had just witnessed what I assumed was human trafficking. You have these two little girls coming from this hallway, there's no parents in sight, one is barefoot, she's not saying anything, while the older one, you know, is doing most of the talking. Now we have these two little girls at this vending machine, but then you have this other man come in and he's standing there, probably keeping an eye on them so that they don't take off. It's wintertime, so even if they did try to take off, they weren't going to make it very far. But then you also have the staff, right? The staff are obviously a part of it. They know what's going on.