'It means the world': Sixties Scoop survivor finds her birth family in N.W.T.

With a single Facebook post, Denise Marshall's search for her birth family was over.

Marshall, who grew up in Whitehorse, was adopted out of Yellowknife by a non-Indigenous family when she was two and a half years old. It was the era of the Sixties Scoop — a decades-long period where thousands of Indigenous children were apprehended and placed into non-Indigenous homes, resulting in a loss of cultural identity.

"I grew up knowing I was adopted, but I didn't really know a lot of my story," said Marshall.

She originally went looking for her birth mother, Debbie, when she was 19. That initial search ended when she found out Debbie had passed away a few years prior.

"I kinda just put everything on hold. Being 19 years old, it was a little too much for me to handle," she said.

She rekindled her search recently after her adoptive father, who she is very close with, became ill. Her adoptive mother passed away 10 years ago, and Marshall wasn't sure how much longer she would have with her father.

"It's kinda brought up for me this feeling of, 'Who do I belong to? What's my family, once my dad passes?'" Marshall said. "I'm feeling almost like I'm an orphan all over again." 

Around that time, she started her own personal healing journey and was encouraged to look into her Indigenous roots. She had been mulling over the idea for a while, and in January she finally decided to make a post on a Hay River Facebook page — the community where her mother was from.

"Within not even an hour of posting that I was completely flooded with messages from cousins, my birth mothers foster family," she said. "People that remembered me as a baby."

Through these messages she found out that her birth mother was in foster care and a residential school survivor, which helped Marshall understand her struggles a bit more. She had previously assumed that, based on the time and region, but to have it confirmed was emotional for her.

Family and family friends sent pictures of her birth mother and herself when she was a baby, something that was quite special for Marshall.

"I'm 45 years old and I had never seen a baby photo of myself — that was huge," she said.

Marshall said receiving all of that information within a week was a bit overwhelming and the experience has brought up a lot of emotions for everyone involved, including her birth mother's foster family.

"It's bringing up for them a sadness. They're happy for me, and they're happy that we found each other, but then they're sad remembering my birth mother," Marshall said.