A Summer of Sorrows

By Sue Careless 

THIS HAS BECOME a summer of sorrow upon sorrow for Canadians as they struggle with the recovery of hundreds of unmarked children’s graves on or near the sites of former Indian Residential Schools.  

On May 28, the remains of what was thought to be 215 children were found buried near the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, B.C., on the lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. (The number of “probable gravesites” was later reduced to 200.) The graves were located with the assistance of ground-penetrating radar. Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir said that the deaths were believed to have been undocumented.

Memorials with 215 pairs of children’s shoes were set up spontaneously at numerous sites across the country. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the recovery at Kamloops as “heartbreaking,” and asked that flags on all federal buildings be flown at half-mast. The federal government has pledged C$27 million in immediate funding to locate and identify unmarked graves at IRS sites. The Ontario and British Columbia governments also pledged $10 million and $12 million respectively to fund similar provincial searches. 

On June 3 a bill creating a statutory holiday to commemorate the tragic legacy of IRS received royal assent after passing unanimously in the Senate. Sept. 30 will be known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It had been held unofficially in many Canadian communities since 2013.

But the Kamloops finding is just the start of what could prove to be the recovery of thousands of unmarked and undocumented graves on or near former Indian Residential school sites. The chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Murray Sinclair has estimated that total deaths could realistically range from 6,000 to 20,000 – well in excess of the 3,200 deaths the final 2015 report was able to confirm through documentary evidence. 

In the early 1900s, local interment was normal practice across many government-funded institutions, especially given the lack of refrigeration and rapid transport. Often when a child died, neither the school nor the government would pay to have the body shipped back to the family, so they were buried near the schools. Local burial was also a public health necessity during epidemics to prevent further contagion. Sometimes, the parents on far-away reserves were never told what happened.  

Most student graves, if they were identified, were marked with only simple wooden crosses, which rotted or were destroyed by fire. And many schools kept sparse burial records.  

Beginning in April 2019, a team from the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation and Simon Fraser University investigated three cemetery sites at Brandon Indian Residential School in Manitoba. On June 4, it was announced that they had located 104 potential graves, of which 78 are accountable through historical records and 26 are undocumented. 

On June 23, the Cowessess First Nation near Broadview, Saskatchewan announced the finding of 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School.  It is still unknown how many of the graves are of children and how many of adults. The communal burial ground next to the school was first used in 1885, before the establishment of the school and is known to contain the remains of band members and people from outside the community. The bodies were not part of a mass grave; rather in 1960 an Oblate priest, in a dispute with a Cowessess Chief, bulldozed several grave markers.

On June 30, the Lower Kootenay Band found 182 shallow, unmarked graves close to the former Catholic St. Eugene’s Mission School near Cranbrook, B.C. 

“Wooden crosses can deteriorate over time due to erosion or fire which can result in an unmarked grave” read a statement from the ʔa’qam Indigenous community after their discovery outside Cranbrook.     

On July 12 the finding of more than 160 “undocumented and unmarked” graves was announced on Penelakut Island, formerly Kuper Island in B.C.’s Southern Gulf Islands. The Kuper Island Industrial School, a Roman Catholic institution, had operated there from 1889 until 1975, and was the site of many horrors that have already been documented. An 1896 survey concluded that almost half – 107 of 264 students – who attended the school until that time had died. That same year, students set fire to the school when holidays home were cancelled. In 1959 two sisters died while trying to escape the island school in a boat.  

A number of First Nations have also announced new searches for unmarked graves at various former residential school sites. Some of these searches were already underway prior to the Kamloops discovery.

Ground-penetrating radar is currently being used on land near the former Thunderchild Residential School operated by the Catholic church in West Central Saskatchewan from 1901-1948. When that search ends, another will begin 35 km away on land around the former Battleford Industrial School. It was operated by the Anglican Church from 1883 to 1914.

The TRC Report recently updated the deaths of residential school students to 6,000. Those 6,000 deaths put the odds of dying in Indian Residential Schools over the years they operated as 1 in 25, which is at about the same rate as for those serving in Canada’s armed forces during the Second World War (1 in 26).

The TRC in its Call to Action #75 urged “Develop and implement strategies to identify, document, maintain and commemorate cemeteries at former residential schools, or other sites where their students are buried.”

In the wake of these tragic findings, there has also been mounting anger. Statues have been toppled of those who were thought to have instigated or supported (even symbolically) the IRS, including Egerton Ryerson, John A. MacDonald, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. And more than 20 churches (some on Indigenous lands) have been vandalized, severely damaged or burnt to the ground. 

This year thousands of Canadians wore orange shirts for Canada Day. And many communities cancelled their official Canada Day celebrations, opting instead for a day of reflection on the tragedy of the Indian residential schools and the young lives lost or broken within their walls.  

Dr. Sarah Beaulieu, who performed the ground-penetrating radar search at the Kamloops school site said on July 15 that her findings of “probable burials” on two acres can’t be confirmed unless excavations are done.  And more radar would be used to scour the total 160-acre school site.

Some First Nations members would prefer the burial sites to be left undisturbed. Others would like the children’s bodies exhumed, identified through DNA testing and returned to their home communities for reburial with appropriate ceremonies. All want student records to be released by the federal government and the churches (some have been released) to determine who these lost children might be.   TAP