Daughter’s concern for father grows after 11 months without contact

Powassin said in 2019, she was supposed to bring her kids, now 7 and 11, to the United States to visit her father, Rodney Powassin, for the first time, but the plans fell through. She said she kept in touch with him through phone calls and emails. The last time she heard from him was April 3, 2025.

In one of their last conversations, she said he spoke of wanting to move to Alaska for a fresh start. He said he would be there in six months and would call her when he was settled in.

When he didn’t call on her birthday two months later, she knew something was wrong.

“I know sometimes he goes off the grid. He has his own mental health issues,” Powassin said, adding that despite his occasional absences, it wasn’t like him to forget to wish her a happy birthday.

Shortly after her birthday, on June 11, Powassin reported her father as a missing person.

“Any time I talk about my dad I get very emotional,” Powassin said. “He wanted to meet his grandbabies, and, unfortunately, that never happened.”

Powassin said her father was born in Iowa but adopted by a First Nations family in Canada. When she was two, he was deported back to the United States. She said her father took her with him, planning to get her U.S. citizenship.

When he was unable to get the proper paperwork, Powassin, a citizen of the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations through her mom’s side, was sent back to the Canadian province of Ontario, where she said she grew up in foster care.

While she believes her father is Native, she is unsure of his tribal affiliation.

Isabella Bakke, another daughter of Rodney Powassin, said she did genealogical research and found out her father is Mexican and German. She said she could not find ties to any Native communities, except for those of her father’s adopted family.

Bakke, who lives in Minnesota, said the first and last time she saw her father in person was in 2017, when she was 14. She said he hitchhiked from Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Minnesota in a blizzard so that he could meet her. When she was 19, she said, he reached out to her to say he was disowning her and wouldn’t talk to her again. She said that was the last time she heard from him.

“It would be really nice for him to be found to be able to answer some questions,” Bakke said.

Bakke describes her father as highly intelligent with a lot of connections, adding, “When he does not want to be contacted or found, he will not be contacted or found.”

“A lot of people have different versions of him depending on what mental state you've met him in,” Powassin said.

She told Buffalo’s Fire that she would confide in him and he would give her advice based on mistakes he made in the past.

Bakke said police have never contacted her to ask questions or to tell her that her father is missing.

Addie Stewart, manager of public information for the West Fargo Police Department, said Rodney Powassin’s case is an open investigation. Stewart said he was reportedly last seen in West Fargo on May 7, 2025. His missing persons report on the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office website says he was last seen May, 22, 2025.

Stewart did not explain the discrepancy and said she had no further details to provide. She said that anyone with information should contact the department at 701-515-5500.

Powassin told Buffalo’s Fire that her father is severely diabetic and wouldn’t be able to go long without his insulin.

She said an email her father sent to her in January 2025, a few months before they lost contact, was cause for concern. In it, she said, her father mentioned fearing for his life. She said she repeatedly reached out to the FBI after receiving it but did not receive a call back.

She said she also did not receive a call back from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which she contacted because her father is half Mexican and she worried he could have been detained.

With each call providing no answers, Powassin said she felt hopeless, adding that it felt like the police were “brushing me off.”

“It just feels like I'm bothering them,” Powassin said. “It doesn't feel like they're willing to work with me.”

Powassin said there haven’t been any leads or updates to the case that she is aware of. She hopes for answers for those in the United States and Canada who care for him.

“I just want to be able to hear my dad’s voice again and tell him that I’m pregnant with another grandkid,” Powassin said.