An Indigenous community in British Columbia has found 93 potential burial sites on the grounds of a former residential school, the latest such discovery in the past year from one of the darkest chapters of Canada’s history.
Chief Willie Sellars of Williams Lake First Nation said preliminary findings of an investigation into the St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School and its environs were part of a wider process of healing from scars passed down across generations. “This journey has led our investigation team into the darkest recesses of human behavior,” he told a news conference.
Nearly 150,000 Indigenous children were separated from their families, often by force, between the 1800s and 1990s in an attempt to assimilate them. They were sent to government-funded, church-run schools that prohibited them from speaking Indigenous languages and practicing their traditions. Many faced neglect and abuse.
In a 2015 report, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said what happened at the schools was akin to “cultural genocide.” It identified at least 4,100 students who died at the schools during that time.
The probe near Williams Lake came after the discovery in May of the remains of 215 Indigenous children, some as young as 3, at another former facility in British Columbia, the Kamloops Indian Residential School, once the largest in Canada.
The last federally funded residential school shut down in the 1990s, after many schools began to close in the 1970s.
Officials said on Tuesday the latest 93 sites showed “reflections” indicating “potential human burials” after using ground-penetrating radar on 14 of the hundreds of hectares of the school grounds, though excavation would be necessary to confirm their presence.
The investigation into St. Joseph’s Mission included interviews with survivors that revealed stories of disappearances, murders, torture, starvation and rape, along with attempts to suppress the reports, Sellars said.
The findings at the residential school “where three generations of my family attended is traumatizing, yet it also serves as validation of the stories told,” said Phyllis Webstad, who founded a nonprofit for reconciliation.
“I have often thought of this day,” she wrote in a statement. “I grieve for all who never made it.”
In a tweet late on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shared the number of a National Indian Residential School Crisis Line set up to support former students. “Today’s news from Williams Lake First Nation brings a lot of distressing emotions to the surface,” he said.