Sisters Cherisse and Jessica Houle were often seen holding hands or hugging one another as children.

“We were only a year and a half apart," Jessica said with sorrow that could be heard over the phone.

"We were inseparable."

Growing up, the girls, who are from Manitoba's Ebb and Flow First Nation, mostly lived with their mother, Barbara Houle and their brother, Jordan Houle in Winnipeg.

But during their teens, they were put in Child and Family Services care.

"They split us up the very first day," Jessica said, shuffling the phone to wipe away tears.

She saw Cherisse during cultural programming that taught them about their Ojibwe heritage.

"It was funny at first... Cherisse and I didn't know what we were doing. Like, we would try so hard to pretend we knew how to fancy shawl dance," she said.

"Eventually it became natural for us and that's when we really started to learn about ourselves."

She said cultural identity gave them a new sense of pride, and one of purpose. They stopped experimenting with drugs, and in 2008 Jessica turned 18 and got her own place.

The plan was for her sister to do the same.

According to a press release issued by the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS), Cherisse was seen for the last time on May 21, 2009.

But her family says they saw Cherisse in June: She was turning 18 on July 7, 2009, and they were planning a celebration.

Six days before her birthday, a construction crew working near Sturgeon Creek in the rural municipality of Rosser, Man. northwest of Winnipeg found Cherisse, face down, in the water.

When her death was reported, the Winnipeg Police Service did not call it a homicide. Jessica said in the month before the tragedy, her sister slipped.

She says Cherisse requested a drug warrant from her social worker, which would have forced her into treatment at the Manitoba Youth Centre, but she did not get the help she needed.

The WPS initially investigated Cherisse's death, and in 2012, Project Devote, a task force that specializes in missing and murdered persons cases in Manitoba, adopted it.

Barbara said both authorities have not provided her with much information about what they've found, and she met with Project Devote investigators for the first time in November 2014 — five years after her daughter was found dead.

Cherisse is not Barbara's only child who faced a violent death. Her son, Jordan was shot and killed on Maryland Street in Winnipeg in September 2012.

"I remain hopeful though," Barbara said.

She attended the first national roundtable on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in February. It took place in Ottawa, and gave her the opportunity to meet with other families that have lost girls and women.

Representatives from Canada’s federal and provincial governments and members of six national aboriginal organizations were there, too.

Barbara and Jessica support the possibility of a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous girls and women in Canada.

While she waits for that inquiry to become reality, Barbara says she will share Cherisse's story and try to reverse damage caused by initial media reports, which she fears her grandchild, Cherisse’s son, will see later in life.

"I don't want people to remember [her] as somebody who was just drug-addicted and lost on the streets... I want people to know she was a very good person," she said.