Anna Maskerine still remembers the phone number of the women's shelter in a small Ontario town where she once sought safety.
It was local police who suggested Maskerine leave her house. They had her abuser in custody but were preparing to release him, so Maskerine packed a bag and rode in the back of a police car to the shelter.
It's difficult to be anonymous in Sioux Lookout, the town Maskerine grew up in. The shelter was located next to her old high school, across the street from the restaurant she worked in as a student. People made cruel jokes, she recalled, about the women coming and going from the building.
Her face still covered in bruises from the night before, Maskerine entered the shelter and realized, with embarrassment, that she recognized the intake counsellor.
"That was probably one of my most vulnerable moments, going there and then encountering a woman, of course, who I knew and who worked with my own mother, as the woman who was bringing me in.鈥�
Maskerine visited the shelter just once, but it became a core experience that has informed a lifetime of protecting women and children from intimate partner violence.
is a new memoir by Maskerine, the executive director of Nelson Community Services and one of the founders of the city's Aimee Beaulieu Transition House.
The book chronicles the severe violence Maskerine survived living with a man in Ontario, her move to Nelson in 1992 and her career providing support for others in need.
Domestic violence remains an epidemic in Canada, one that Maskerine doesn't believe garners enough attention.
The federal government found 117,093 victims, ages 12 and older, in 2022, the majority of whom are women. That total only captures a fraction of victims. Just 20 per cent of people experiencing intimate partner violence in 2019 reported it to police, according to Statistics Canada.
The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability says 187 women and girls were killed in 2024. On average a woman or girl is killed every other day in Canada, and a woman is killed by a male partner on average once a week.
鈥榃e've been holding events for 35 years to educate community and doing public awareness and I'm still surprised even in my own circle of friends and connections, when I talk about this issue, how people still don't really understand that it's a big issue. It happens in Nelson, in our ideal community. People are surprised by that.鈥�
There are graphic descriptions of violence in Beneath My Scars, which Maskerine says could be triggering for anyone in the process of escaping abuse. But in her search for some kind of meaning, Maskerine wanted to show other women how they can learn from her experiences.
鈥淚t feels like a completion. It feels like I took what happened and did something with that. That felt meaningful for me and hopefully for other people.鈥�
Maskerine's survival in the book often seems as much a miracle as it is a credit to her and the people who tried to help.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, law enforcement had no training for working with victims of domestic violence. In one excerpt, Maskerine recalls being blamed by Ontario police for calling for help. "Just so you鈥檙e aware, we had to come all the way across town for this, a misdemeanour," she was told.
Canada had no law preventing husbands from sexually abusing their wives until 1983, and criminal harassment didn't exist in the Criminal Code until 1993.
In B.C. there are now more than 50 Interagency Case Assessment Teams, which are comprised of community services workers, police and provincial ministry staff who provide co-ordinated care in response to high-risk cases of domestic violence, according to Ending Violence Association of B.C. But even those teams are relatively new, having only first started in 2008.
Fearing what her abuser might do, Maskerine, her wife and son move across the country to Nelson in 1992 where she takes a job with Nelson Community Services. She's soon asked by then-executive director Lena Horswill to help create a transition house in the city.
In setting up what would become the Aimee Beaulieu Transition House, Maskerine asks herself what services she could have used in Sioux Lookout.
鈥淚 worked hard to build really good relationships with the people that were key in our service, and I think that got us a long way, too. We had lots of support in the community when we opened up.鈥�
Maskerine stayed in charge of the transition house from its opening in 1995 until her promotion to Nelson Community Services' executive director in 2022.
Her book recounts both successes and failures with clients at the transition house. She gives a poster to a child with the words "it's not your fault." The next morning she discovers he's made dozens of copies and pasted them as affirmations on the walls of his room.
Another time, Maskerine connects with a woman she calls Jan who came to the transition house with her children but suddenly disappears. Months later she discovers notes hidden in her office from Jan, thanking Maskerine for her help.
In the decades since leaving Ontario, Maskerine's abuser has passed away. Her son Christian is now a grown man, and has two children of his own.
While writing her memoir, Maskerine came to find some perspective on a time in her life that used to haunt her. She is no longer a victim, and has made a difference with what her experiences taught her.
鈥淵ears ago, I would have seen myself as a really different woman than I see myself now. Now I look back and I think, wow, you were really strong. You were really resilient.鈥�
For women in need of assistance, the Aimee Beaulieu Transition House in Nelson can be contacted 24-7 at 250-354-4357. A text option is available at 778-608-3900, seven days weekly from 8:30 a.m. to midnight. An online chat and more information is available at .
For residents outside Nelson, VictimLinkBC is a 24-7, confidential, multilingual service that can connect calls to various resources. It can be called or texted at 1-800-563-0808, or emailed at victimlinkbc@bc211.ca.
Women at immediate risk of harm should call 911.
