Canadian Indian residential school gravesites
Throughout its history, the Canadian Indian residential school system saw many deaths. The number of school-related deaths, mostly from tuberculosis, remains unknown due to incomplete records. Estimates range from 3,200 to over 6,000. Comparatively few cemeteries associated with residential schools are explicitly referenced in surviving documents, however the age and duration of the schools suggests that most had a cemetery associated with them. Most cemeteries were unregistered, and as such the locations of many burial sites of residential school children have been lost. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has called for "the  ongoing identification, documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children were buried." The Canadian Indian Residential Schools were a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. Directed and funded by the Department of Indian Affairs, and administered mainly by Christian churches, the residential school system removed and isolated Indigenous children from the influence of their own native culture and religion in order to forcefully assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. Given that most of them were established by Christian missionaries with the express purpose of converting Indigenous children to Christianity , schools often had nearby mission churches with community cemeteries. Students were often buried in these cemeteries rather than being sent back to their home communities, since the school was expected by the Department of Indian Affairs to keep costs as low as possible. Additionally, occasional outbreaks of disease led to the creation of mass graves when the school had insufficient staff to bury students individually. Bodies, unmarked graves, and potential burial sites have been identified near residential school sites across Canada since the 1970s, mainly using ground-penetrating radar. To date, the sites of unmarked graves are estimated to hold  the remains of more than 1,900 previously unaccounted individuals, mostly children. However, across the entire residential school system, the number of identifiable children who are documented as having died while in their custody is over 4,100 individuals; the fourth volume of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada "identified 3,200 deaths on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Register of Confirmed Deaths of Named Residential School Students and the Register of Confirmed Deaths of Unnamed Residential School Students". Most of the recorded student deaths at residential schools took place before the 1950s. Anti-tuberculosis antibiotics became widely used in the  1950s, which led to a decline in the incidence of the disease. The issue of unmarked graves gained renewed attention after an anthropologist detected ground disturbances on radar at Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021, and concluded that these were 215 "probable burials" (this number was later revised to 200). Several similar announcements followed over the ensuing months, leading to commemorations and protests, as well as leading to a series of arsons against Christian buildings. Background. The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. They were funded by the Department of Indian  Affairs branch of the Canadian government, and administered by Christian churches across the country. The school system was created to remove and isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own native culture and religion in order to forcefully assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. The residential school system ran for over 120years, with the last school closing in 1997. A significant number of Indigenous children died while attending residential schools, mostly from disease or fire, with some schools experiencing rates as high as 1death per 20students. The vast majority of deaths occurred before the 1950s. An exact number  of school-related deaths remains unknown due to incomplete records from negligence. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report estimates the number of unmarked graves to be 3,200. However, other sources state this is a conservative estimate, and the actual number could be much higher. The fourth volume of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's (TRC) final report, dedicated to missing children and unmarked burials, was developed after the original TRC members realized, in 2007, that the issue required its own working group. In 2009, the TRC requested $1.5million in extra funding from the federal government to complete  this work, but was denied. The researchers concluded, after searching through available records, analyzing satellite imagery and maps of school sites, and visiting a representative sample of sites across the country, that, "for the most part, the cemeteries that the Commission documented are abandoned, disused, and vulnerable to accidental disturbance".This research done by the Commission resulted in the creation of a centralized database of information about where children who died at residential school are buried. Of the 139 recognized residential schools, 59 cemeteries were identified by the Commission, and 55 individual reports detailing information about the history of each  cemetery were created. The effort to fully document the children that never returned home from the schools remains ongoing. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified 1,953children, 477 where additional investigation is required and an additional 1,242students where they are known to have passed away but their names are not yet known. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) has conducted further review of the records and has added an additional 471students to the memorial. This number is expected to climb as additional work is conducted. In total there are presently 4,126children within the national student memorial register. Research efforts  by the NCTR are ongoing, and this number will increase over time. At present, the memorial only contains the names of students who attended schools covered by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) and does not include students who died while attending day schools or other non-IRSSA schools. Initial allegations. Kevin Annett, a defrocked United Church of Canada minister who was removed in 1997 from the ministry for spreading conspiracy theories, publicized evidence of the deaths of indigenous children in 1995 and took his claims to the Canadian police in 1996. Annett produced a film on the subject  in 2006 and has published multiple books focusing on archive-sourced documentary evidence and victim testimonies. Annett's grassroots common law prosecution activities gained support from Baltasar Garzón. Annett also co-founded a grassroots Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada in 2001 which published a report predating TRC's by a few years. Annett has been characterised as a "conspiracy theorist", with several debunked claims and unsubstantiated accounts regarding abuse and death of indigenous children at the hands of German doctors, scientists, the British royal family, First Nations' leaders (resulting in a libel suit), as well as claims of an  arrest warrant for Pope Francis. Investigation of unmarked gravesites. Since the 1970s, investigations into unmarked gravesites around residential schools have taken place using a variety of methods, including non-invasive archaeological tools such as ground-penetrating radar. The announcement of preliminary results from one such investigation at the former site of Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021 made international news and led to wider and renewed calls to investigate other former school sites for unmarked graves. Battleford. Battleford Industrial School's final principal expressed concern over future generations forgetting the cemetery containing the bodies of former students at the  school site: The land was never officially registered as a cemetery, and became dilapidated and vandalised. In 1974, five students from the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Saskatchewan excavated 72 graves at the Battleford school cemetery, constituting nearly all of the 74 people buried in the cemetery. Most of the people buried there are former students of the Industrial School. During the excavation, the contents of each unmarked grave were uncovered, identified, and recorded, then re-covered and marked with a marble marker, before a chain-link fence was erected around the outside of the site . On August 31, 1975, the burial ground was reconsecrated by the students in a ceremony, during which a cairn was erected with the names of fifty students known to be buried there. In 2019, the cemetery was designated Provincial Heritage Property by the Government of Saskatchewan. Sacred Heart (Fort Providence). From 1992 to 1994, Albert Lafferty, a Métis resident of Fort Providence, Northwest Territories, led research into the old community cemetery, located near the site of the former Sacred Heart Mission School (operated by the Catholic Church from 1867 to 1960) and the mission's associated hospital. Lafferty was prompted  by a desire to follow up on stories he had heard in the community about unmarked graves. He found that the missionaries established the first on that site cemetery in 1868, but relocated the remains of eight missionaries that had been buried there to the present location of the Catholic cemetery in 1929. In relocating, they had left behind the remains of hundreds of Indigenous people buried there, and the cemetery was ploughed over in 1948, after which it became a potato field. Over the course of his research, which was facilitated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mackenzie–Fort  Smith in Yellowknife and involved the use of ground-penetrating radar, Lafferty identified 298 people likely buried at the site in unmarked graves. This number includes adults, as well as 161 children from across the Dehcho who attended the Sacred Heart Mission School. Some members of the community believe the actual number of interred students is much higher, while a separate study estimates the site holds a total of 150 children and adults. In 2013, a memorial was erected on the site, which lists the names or identities (in the case of individuals whose names are unknown) of the people  buried at the site. Since around 2009, former NWT premier Stephen Kakfwi made annual pilgrimages to the site to honour the dead in ceremony, and has encouraged community members, as well as representatives of religious institutions and governments to do the same. In July 2021, Deh Gáh Got’ı̨ę First Nation confirmed that they would try to complete a further search of the former school grounds before the first snowfall, though community healing and acquiring funding were priorities. St. Joseph's (Dunbow). In 1996, a flood eroded the banks of the Highwood River, exposing the caskets and remains of some of  the 73 children known to have died while attending Dunbow Industrial School, also referred to as St. Joseph's. In May 2001, the remains of 34 children were identified and re-interred at a site further from the river, following First Nations, Métis, and Christian traditions. Since then, local resident Laurie Sommerville has worked on identifying the names of some of the deceased children, and had identified 27 as of May 2013. Regina. In 2012, an archaeological survey utilizing ground-penetrating radar was conducted over the south part of the privately-owned plot of land that held the cemetery associated  with the Regina Indian Industrial School (RIIS). The survey found evidence of 22 graves. Documents from 1921 indicated that a prairie fire likely destroyed the wooden crosses marking thirty to forty gravesites. The cemetery is located at the western edge of the former property at 701 Pinkie Road. In 2014, an unpublished report by the Regina Planning Department indicated that the site contained the remains of First Nations and Métis children, as well as the bodies of the children of the school's first principal. In September 2016, the cemetery received municipal heritage status, and in July 2017 it received  provincial heritage status. It had been privately-owned farmland since the 1980s. The RCMP, who owned the land adjacent to the cemetery, contacted the landowner about the remains in 2007, and began to initiate a land transfer. According to the CBC, the land was "recovered" in 2011. An arrangement was reached between the realtor who owned the property the cemetery was on, the RCMP, and the RIIS Commemorative Association, and in 2019, a land transfer ceremony was held to give the land to the Commemorative Association. In the weeks before Canada's first National Day for Truth And Reconciliation on  September 30, 2021, 38 orange metal feathers were placed in the ground on the site, to mark the gravesites of the 38 children identified to have been buried there. The metal markers were donated by Pasqua First Nation and Pro Metal Industries. The site is encircled by a white picket fence. Kamloops. In 2021, Sarah Beaulieu, an anthropologist experienced at searching for historical gravesites, surveyed the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School on the lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation with ground-penetrating radar and observed "disruptions in the ground" which she concluded could be 200 unmarked  graves, based on "their placement, size, depth, and other features" though "only forensic investigation with excavation" would confirm if these were actually human remains. Brandon. Beginning in 2012, a team from the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation and Simon Fraser University investigated two cemetery sites at Brandon Indian Residential School in Brandon. The project, which received funding to continue its work in April 2019, was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to two previously known cemeteries, the project found a possible third burial site. On June4, 2021, it was announced that 104 potential graves had been located, of which  78 are accountable through historical records. Marieval. A community graveyard next to Marieval Indian Residential School in Marieval on the lands of Cowessess First Nation was first used in 1885 prior to the establishment of the school, and as such included not only the graves of children but also adult Catholic parishioners. However by 2021, only an estimated third of the graves remained marked. The archbishop of Regina Don Bolen said that the loss of headstones occurred at least partly in the 1960s when an Oblate priest and a local First Nations chief "entered into a conflict" and the priest  then used a bulldozer to knock over "huge numbers of tombstones." One person claiming relatives in the cemetery said he knew the workers who picked up the headstones. In 2019, the Archdiocese of Regina provided the Cowessess First Nation $70,000 to identify the unmarked graves and restore the cemetery. A subsequent search for unmarked gravesites was delayed two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2021, the Cowessess First Nation announced it would search the site using ground-penetrating radar in collaboration with a group from Saskatchewan Polytechnic. It started on June1 and was expanded four times after  anecdotes from elders that bodies had been buried past the school grounds. On June24, 2021, Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme announced that findings from the preliminary survey indicated the presence of up to 751unmarked graves near the former site of the school. The preliminary figure was the largest number of potential or confirmed unmarked graves associated with a given residential school according to the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN), which represents Saskatchewan's First Nations. Delorme underlined, "This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves." In noting that the radar technology used had an error  rate of 10–15%, he concluded that as a result of the loss of the headstones, "...today, we have over 600 unmarked graves." On October8, 2021, it was announced that names had been put to 300 of the gravesites. The identification was made possible through the records of the RCMP, the Catholic Church, and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, as well as band members' oral stories. Kootenay. On June 30, 2021, it was announced that 182 unmarked grave sites were identified by the St. Mary's First Nation (a member of the Ktunaxa Nation) at the site near the former St.  Eugene's Mission Residential School. The former residential school is located near the city of Cranbrook and the school building has operated as the St. Eugene Golf Resort and Casino since 2000. According to a former First Nations chief and survivor of the school, the graveyard dates to before the construction of the school and has been continuously used for burials by the local community. The graves were marked with wooden crosses which eventually burned or rotted away. Kuper Island. In 2018, Penelakut Chief and Council and Elders' Committee met with researchers from the University of British Columbia to discuss  possible identification of unmarked graves using GPR. This work would build on previous GPR surveys conducted in known cemeteries in the community. On July12, 2021, Chief Joan Brown of the Penelakut First Nation announced that at least 160unmarked graves were located on the grounds of the former Kuper Island Indian Industrial school, off Vancouver Island. The school, referred to as "Canada's Alcatraz", was operated on the remote Penelakut Island (formerly Kuper Island) from 1889 to 1969 by the Catholic Church, and from 1969 to 1975 by the federal government. Williams Lake. In June 2021, a search was announced of  the site of St. Joseph's Mission Residential School near Williams Lake, led by Williams Lake First Nation, using ground-penetrating radar, and focusing on 0.15 square kilometres of the 4.5 square kilometre site. Work began in late August 2021. On January 25, 2022, the chief of Williams Lake First Nations announced that 93 potential burial sites were discovered. Kamsack and Fort Pelly. A search using ground-penetrating radar was conducted by Keeseekoose First Nation on the former grounds of St. Philip's Indian Residential School in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, and the former site of another school near Fort Pelly, which  had been erected at the expense of the Oblate Fathers from 1905 to 1913. The search by ground-penetrating radar revealed 42 potential unmarked graves at the Fort Pelly site, and 12 at St. Philip's. Grouard. On March 1, 2022, the Kapawe'no First Nation announced the results of a search of 3696.5m at the site of St. Bernard's Residential School conducted in October 2021 by the Institute Prairie and Indigenous Archeology from the University of Alberta. The search was led by Dr. Kish Supernant and used ground-penetrating radar and multi-spectral imagery captured by drone. It  found 169 potential gravesites that researchers subdivided into three categories, based on confidence intervals. From lowest to highest confidence, the categories they used for the GPR reflections identified in the search are as follows: 32 possible graves, 129 probable graves, and 8 likely graves were identified in the final summary of the search. The nation also announced plans to conduct further searches based on the testimony of residential school survivors. The nation is planning searches of a nearby Anglican church and a site where Indian agents and the North-West Mounted Police had structures. Lestock. A cemetery established at the  Muscowequan Indian Residential School was rediscovered in 1992 amidst planning for and initial work on a new water line from documentary evidence and inadvertent exhumations during the aborted dig. Nineteen bodies were found with indications of further graves nearby. In 2018, a team led by a University of Alberta researcher identified a further ten to fifteen potential gravesites by GPR. The graves are estimated to contain people of Saulteaux, Cree, Métis as well as European origin, many of whom had fallen ill from an influenza epidemic in the early 1900s. Further searches are planned. La Ronge. A cemetery dating back  to at least the early 1900s was situated by the Lac La Ronge Indian Residential School near La Ronge on or adjacent to land that is now the Lac La Ronge Indian Band's urban reserve. The graveyard served as the last resting place for community members, school staff and possibly students who passed away at the school. While the cemetery retains some headstones, rocks and other grave markings, SNC Lavalin was hired to search for potential unmarked graves using GPR within as well as outside the boundaries where some fear the unbaptized or those who committed suicide were buried . As of December 23, 2021, the search was about 97 percent complete. Crosses were put up to mark possible gravesites identified by GPR. George Gordon. On April 20, 2022, George Gordon First Nation Chief Byron Bitternose announced that 14 possible grave sites were identified using ground-penetrating radar at the former George Gordon Indian Residential School site. Records from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation showed that 49 students died during the school's operation from 1888 to 1996. To be determined. A number of First Nations have announced searches for unmarked graves at various former residential school sites . Some of these searches were already underway prior to the Kamloops confirmation. Below are a list of school sites announced thus far: Reactions. Community memorials have been set up at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Ontario Legislative Building, as well as various government buildings and church buildings that had been in charge of running the residential school system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked that flags on all federal buildings be flown at half-mast. On June2, 2021, the federal government pledged C$27 million in immediate funding to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to identify the unmarked graves . The provincial governments of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario also pledged C$12million, C$8million, C$2million, C$2.5million and C$10million, respectively, to fund searches. MPs Mumilaaq Qaqqaq and Charlie Angus have called on Justice Minister David Lametti to launch an independent investigation on crimes against humanity in Canada. Canada Day festivities were cancelled in some communities in British Columbia, Alberta, Northern Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. The Canadian School Boards Association has asked for the development of a Canada-wide curriculum on Indigenous history, to be taught from kindergarten to Grade12. In New Brunswick, Education Minister Dominic  Cardy said the education curriculum would be amended to teach about the province's Indigenous day schools. The United Nations Human Rights Office and independent UN human rights experts have called on Canada and the Holy See to investigate the uncoveries. Similar sentiments were echoed by the governments of China, Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela. The identification of possible gravesites at Kamloops has been followed by calls for name changes and removals of monuments commemorating figures controversial for their colonial views or policies towards Indigenous peoples. These include monuments to Egerton Ryerson, John A. Macdonald, Hector-Louis  Langevin, Oscar Blackburn, and Vital-Justin Grandin. The doors of St. Paul's Cathedral in Saskatoon were covered in paint on June24. A school named after Prince Charles has been renamed, and statues of Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth II, and James Cook toppled. A nationwide survey of editors published by the Canadian Press voted the topic "Children who never returned from residential schools" as the Canadian Newsmakers of the Year in 2021. Church fires. By July4, 2021 nearly two dozen churches, including eight on First Nations territories, had been burned. Some indigenous leaders, the prime minister, and provincial officials have  condemned the suspected arsons. Harsha Walia, the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, tweeted "burn it all down", and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs expressed "strong solidarity with (Harsha Walia) in condemning the brutally gruesome genocide of residential ‘school’ system by Canada and Church while crown stole FN land". Call for investigation into Duplessis Orphans. Numerous Duplessis Orphans were committed, some wrongfully, by the provincial government of Quebec into psychiatric hospitals run by the Catholic Church in the 1940s and 1950s and possibly buried there. The publicity and government response concerning the situation at residential  schools renewed calls for the Quebec government and the Catholic Church to excavate the sites of these hospitals, with a class action lawsuit launched in 2018 denouncing the lack of a "true apology" by the government and religious organizations. Investigations that found no gravesites. Shubenacadie. From April 2020 to July 2021, an investigation of the site of the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Shubenacadie was led by a member of the Sipekneꞌkatik First Nation who is a curator with the Nova Scotia Museum, along with an associate professor from Saint Mary's University. The residential school operated from 1929  to 1967, and the building burned to the ground in 1986. The land is now occupied by a plastics factory and used as farmland. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation lists 16 children who died while attending the school, and the community feared more had been buried at the site. Evidence had been identified that indicated unmarked graves on the site, but they predated the school's founding by a century. The investigation made use of ground-penetrating radar and aerial laser scanning. On August4, 2021, the Sipekneꞌkatik First Nation issued a press release stating the investigation had concluded , confirming that it was unable to find any unmarked graves of children who had died while at the school. Chief Mike Sack said that the investigation would resume if further evidence came to light.