When Deidre Johnson fills in for Silver Bay's only police officer for
six weeks, she doesn't anticipate facing anything of consequence. She is
so wrong. She discovers the frozen body of a Cree Indian girl within the
city limits, and in the process of her investigation uncovers a
sex-trafficking ring involving native women being transported from
Canada and sold in the Duluth Harbor. She is torn between the normalcy
she sees around her and the long-kept secret river of young girls that
flows through Two Harbors to Duluth. "SEX TRAFFICKING during hunting
season?" the question on the billboard erected outside Two Harbors
asked. "The sign is intended to raise awareness of sex trafficking to
the hundreds of deer hunters traveling through the country over the next
several weeks. 'They're all over--walking by abandoned buildings and
down long [logging] roads' according to a Lake County Commissioner."
--Lake County News Chronicle, November 8, 2013 "Trafficking of Native
women is rampant in northern Minnesota. The Duluth harbor is notorious
among native people as a site for the trafficking of Native women from
northern reservations." --Christine Stark, Minneapolis Star Tribune,
August 4, 2013 "Known as the Lake Superior sex trade," says author and
researcher Christine Stark, "teenage girls and boys, and even babies are
being sold on ships in the Duluth, Minnesota harbors and being sent to
Ontario, Canada. Indigenous women from Canada, specifically Thunder Bay,
are also being sold on ships headed for Duluth." --MintPress News,
September 19, 2013
