ATHABASCA — Almost 170 possible unmarked graves have been identified on one acre of land at a former residential school near High Prairie where children from the Calling Lake area were often sent.
In a joint press conference Mar. 1 with the Kapawe’no First Nation chief Sydney Halcrow, Treaty 8 First Nations Grand Chief Arthur Noskey and Dr. Kisha Supernant with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, revealed the findings of a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) study completed Oct. 21, 2021.
“Today's announcement is painful. It's fortunate that so many of us can be together today, together, we are always stronger,” said Halcrow. “The work completed is just the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of uncovering our truth.
He said in June of last year he reached out to Noskey to start the process to determine if there are unmarked graves as per the stories of survivors of the Grouard Mission located on the northwest edge of Lesser Slave Lake, 250 kilometres northwest of Athabasca.
“Due to all the testimonies that we were getting it was decided that the best approach would be research phases,” Halcrow said. “I would like to acknowledge the late Cecil Bellrose and his wife. It all started with him when he reached out to me after the Kamloops story broke.”
Athabascan Alma Swan is a generational survivor, her mother was sent to a different residential school, but she knows of at least two men from Calling Lake who were sent to the Grouard Mission.
“People from Calling Lake or from the Bigstone band, people from Fort Mackay, some of those ended up at Grouard,” said Swan in a March 5 interview.
Halcrow was audibly shaken as he recounted some of the stories shared by survivors which led to the decision to search the cemetery at the St. Bernard Mission, or as it’s commonly referred to, the Grouard Mission, which was closed 60 years ago.
“I want to pay special homage at our next gathering,” he said. “It’s people like (Bellrose) that tell their stories which are so painful, and those stories are being borne out as we move forward.”
He said there are two more phases left to complete to verify the findings.
“This marks a long journey ahead of us on hopes to find answers for the children who never made it home from the St. Bernard Mission. Once we do that, we can start our journey of healing, rebuilding our identities that they fought so hard to take from us,” said Halcrow. “The grief we felt when discovering our stolen children has opened questions. We remember desolation of our people felt when our children were forcibly removed from their families (and) communities to be placed in Indian residential schools.”
Supernant then described how GPR works and acknowledged it is not 100 per cent conclusive the anomalies are unmarked graves.
“First, we do not need ground-penetrating radar results to know that children didn't come home from the school,” she said. “The knowledge of survivors and the extensive archival records already contained clear information about children dying while in residence here.”
She added a negative result from GPR does not mean no grave is there as the technology isn’t foolproof but rather it may take archival information and survivor testimony to pinpoint some of the graves.
“As Chief Halcrow noted, 169 potential graves were identified based on analysis of anomalies within the GPR data that had characteristics associated with unmarked graves,” said Supernant. “Of these, 115 were found inside the existing community cemetery in areas with no grave markers. Due to the combination of these being inside the cemetery, and some corresponding surface indications such as depressions, we can be reasonably confident that these most likely represent graves.”
The other 54 potential graves share characteristics of those within the cemetery and were located scattered around the school property.
“And as a reminder, we've only covered about an acre of land. There are very large other areas left to search,” she said, noting children who potentially went to the Grouard Mission included some with her own surname — lost relatives she wasn’t aware of.
“This was part of my discovery in this work,” she said. “I didn't know that ahead of time, because my dad was a victim of the Sixties Scoop and taken from his mother at birth ... and I have had to spend a lot of my adult life reconnecting. This work is really hard but really important to me as a relative, but also as someone who is very committed to using the best possible scientific methods, being very true to the data we can collect in this process, and I just feel humbled to be able to bring both of those things to this work.”
It is unknown how many children attended the Grouard Mission, but residential schools were filled with children from across Western Canada and the Northwest Territories.
“Being a generational survivor ... I'm beginning to question how many people do I know that had babies that died or were murdered, were incinerated,” said Swan. “So, for me, every time I hear this it’s to the point of traumatizing me to think ‘Oh, what happened to my mum? What happened to other people?”
Phase 2 will be a continuation of searching archival records and working with survivors to gather oral histories.
“(It’s) one acre of what is a very large area and so there are additional areas that need to be narrowed down to target for ground penetrating radar and other technologies,” said Supernant. “There may also be some follow up on the areas we've already searched to bring in another method just to add to our knowledge there.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Minister of Indigenous Relations Rick Wilson issued a joint statement following the Kapawe’no press conference.
“The discovery of anomalies consistent with unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school near High Prairie reminds us of the likelihood that there are unmarked graves of Indigenous children and youth at such sites across the province. These research findings can be traumatic for many Indian Residential School survivors and First Nations across the province," the statement read, adding the residential school system was "a wicked injustice that too often forcibly segregated children from their families and sought to suppress Indigenous culture and language. Recorded instances of violence and abuse are part of the tragic memory and legacy of the system."
There is more work to be done and Noskey said bishops with the Catholic church have provided a list of names which were on the wall behind the three speakers at the press conference.
“And we ask for ongoing cooperation not only the churches, the bishops across Canada, but also with the municipalities, private landowners, towns where these searches have to happen,” said Noskey.
A summary of the search at the Grouard Mission can be found on the Kapawe’no First Nation website as well as a link to a documentary of the search.
“Our little warriors waited (for us) to find them,” said Halcrow. “Now we will ensure you rest in peace.”
