Here We Go Again

Like so:

May 27 of this year will be the fifth anniversary of the shocking announcement that the unmarked graves of 215 missing children had been found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. But the announcement turned out to be a nothing-burger. On the third anniversary, the band’s leadership admitted that ground penetrating radar (GPR) had found only “soil anomalies” that were “potential” graves.

Now, just in time for the fifth anniversary of the Kamloops non-discovery, the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation of northern Alberta has announced the discovery of 62 potential grave sites on its reserve. They claim they are looking for the remains of “82 children between the ages of seven and 16, who went to St. Francis Xavier Residential School between 1907 and 1962.”

In some ways, this effort is more sophisticated than the Kamloops grave hunt. The searchers are using multiple imaging technologies, not just GPR. The work is being supervised by Dr. Kisha Supernant, a prominent archaeologist from the University of Alberta. And the Nation is avoiding exaggerated claims about what has been found.

Nevertheless, the conceptual foundations of the project seem fundamentally flawed. First, who are these 82 children whose burial sites are unknown? What relation do they have to the 45 named students who are listed by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation as having died while attending the school?

Second, the searchers are using their equipment in known burial grounds. According to the CBC story, “Nine of the 62 are not within a cemetery location … but rather in areas where there's likely to be buried human remains.” Let me reverse that contorted phrasing in the interests of clarity. Fifty-three of these 62 possible graves are in recognized cemeteries, and nine are in other places known to have been used as burial sites.

The true headline should be, “Searchers find possible graves in cemeteries.” And, to quote Dr. Supernant, “We have no idea if these are children from the residential school or not … It's possible that some of them could be, we really just don't know that yet.” Only the ever-credulous CBC could build a national news story out of such meagre information.

This is just the latest in a long line of post-Kamloops announcements that missing children’s remains had been found, or may have been found, or could be found in the future. But not one verified grave of a child who attended an Indian residential school has actually been found.

All this fruitless searching is possible only because of federal government funding. “Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation is applying for funding to continue the work through a federal program called the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund. ‘I think this is just the beginning of a lot of research,’ [Chief] Sunshine said.”

Your tax dollars at work.