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A Starlight tour is when an often intoxicated Indigenous man is taken outside the city in sub-zero temperatures and left there.
The Starlight Tours are a piece of current and modern experience of primarily Indigenous men. It is shocking that many people in so-called "Canada" have not even heard of this. A Starlight tour is when an often intoxicated Indigenous man is taken outside the city in sub-zero temperatures and left there. They often have their clothing taken away as well, further exposing them to the elements. The earliest documented case of this was in 1976, and they continue to happen today.
Saskatoon has had the spotlight on them for these murders with the death of 17 year old Neil Stonechild in 1990 - it took 10 years to actually investigate this.
Documented cases in that area also include the deaths of Rodney Naistas and Lawrence Wegner in 2000. Darrell Night survived a Starlight tour that same year. The officers connected to Night’s kidnapping were sentenced to 8 months in jail. No police officers have ever been charged with the murdering of Indigenous men on these incidents.
Although Saskatoon is spotlighted in this, more and more evidence is arriving from both Manitoba and Alberta. Winnipeg alone has now documented 76 suspicious cases. This is our men being murdered consistently, and continually having the cause of death being listed as hypothermia.If we look at other cases of suspicious death of Indigenous peoples, it makes one start to wonder how prominent this dehumanizing, heart breaking, life taking practise actually is. All one needs to do is look towards the Pickton farm or the Highway of Tears in B.C, or the suspicious, never solved murder of young Colten Crowshoe, to realize, we as Indigenous people have a realistic fear of police enforcement.
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