A First Nation in Saskatchewan says it has discovered hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school, the latest such announcement from Indigenous groups struggling to come to terms with the legacy of the schools and the missing children who attended them.
Indigenous leaders and archeologists predict there will be more such finds as the federal and provincial governments, as well as private corporations, provide support for First Nations to deploy ground-penetrating radar technology to search for gravesites.
A news conference is scheduled for Thursday morning when the Cowessess First Nation will explain the shocking discovery on the grounds of the former Marieval Indian Residential School. Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme could not be reached for comment.
The news comes about a month after Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir said a preliminary search using the radar technology had discovered the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. That announcement garnered international attention and immediately touched off commemorations across Canada and demands for provincial governments and Ottawa to take greater action, including to help communities search the grounds of former schools.
The Cowessess First Nation posted a link Wednesday to a Zoom meeting aimed at band members and survivors of the residential school to explain to the community how the graves were found and to discuss next steps. The meeting was not open to the public.
“We understand the recent Kamloops Residential School finding of 215 unmarked graves has affected many emotionally and mentally,” the band said in its Facebook post, adding that support is available for anyone in need.
The Cowessess First Nation has a population of 4,235 with Cree and Salteaux heritage. Their land is about 160 kilometres east of Regina.
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, a member of the Little Bear First Nation in southern Saskatchewan, said in a tweet the news is “absolutely tragic, but not surprising.”
“I urge all Canadians to stand with First Nations in this extremely difficult and emotional time.”
The Cowessess First Nation has been working with experts and survivors who attended the Marieval school in an effort to identify unmarked graves at the site of the institution’s cemetery. The graveyard operated long after the residential school closed and the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) indicated it was likely home to unmarked graves. The west end of the cemetery is still active, according to a part of the report, while “the portion in use during IRS [Indian residential schools] era was at the east end nearest to the church,” TRC documents say.
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The original school at the site was demolished and replaced with a day school, but the church, rectory and cemetery remain, it noted.
The office of Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett said Ottawa will not comment before the community holds its news conference on Thursday. Ms. Bennett announced on Tuesday that the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan, would receive $4.88-million of $27-million earmarked by the federal government for community-led research of burial sites.
The Alberta government also announced Tuesday $8-million for searches at former schools in that province.
Premier Jason Kenney says the horror of the schools remains difficult to comprehend.
``There have been many of those students who were buried in unmarked graves or graves that have been lost – and we’ve been reminded we have a moral obligation to find them.”
Kisha Supernant, director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology at the University of Alberta, said she expects similar announcements in the coming weeks. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s register counts 1,420 children as having died of disease or accidents while attending residential schools across the country. However, Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, previously said that as many as 6,000 children could have died.
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“We need to prepare for the fact that there will be other schools, probably with similar numbers,” said Dr. Supernant, who is Métis. “But I also really want to emphasize that any number of unmarked graves around a school is horrible: there should not be a school with a cemetery.”
She said news of these sites hit Indigenous peoples especially hard because “we know a lot of these stories already.”
Earlier this month, non-profits running Indigenous crisis lines told The Globe and Mail they have fielded a large number of calls for help from residential survivors and their families who were retraumatized after the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc announced the discovery of unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Residential School.
James Daschuk, a researcher of historical Indigenous health who teaches at the University of Regina, said announcements like Wednesday’s will become commonplace, noting $8-million has been committed to similar archeological searches across Saskatchewan alone.
He said these discoveries will force the whole country to reckon with its past.
“The people in power didn’t really give credence to a lot of these stories, which were passed on from generation to generation [among First Nations],” he said. “To really think about who we are as a people, we think of Canadians as a kind and decent people and this is a symptom of what the state – and the church on its behalf – did to Indigenous children.”
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