By David Opinko / with files from The Canadian Press

169 “anomalies” discovered at former residential school site in Northern Alberta

Mar 1, 2022 | 1:57 PM

KAPAWE’NO FIRST NATION, AB – The initial findings of a ground-penetrating radar search has unveiled the possibility of up to 169 child graves at a former residential school in Northern Alberta.

The Kapawe’no First Nation has released the results of phase one of their search into the former St. Bernard Mission, located approximately 151 kilometres southwest of Peace River.

Officials say they found 169 “anomalies” in the one-acre area that was part of the first phase, which would potentially represent children who died at the former residential school.

That includes 115 unmarked graves at the cemetery where other members of the community were buried as well.

It is, for this reason, that Dr. Kisha Supernant from the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology at the University of Alberta is not able to say conclusively yet how many of these unmarked graves were for children who attended the residential school.

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Another 54 “potential graves” were discovered elsewhere on the school site.

“Finding one grave is too much,” says Kapawe’no Chief Sydney Halcrow. “Finding (multiple) is incomprehensible.”

Phases two and three will start in the coming months and will include searches of the Anglican church and the Northwest Mounted Police sites, among other areas.

The St. Bernard Mission includes a one-story church and a cemetery on 65 hectares of land in the Hamlet of Grouard.

It was founded in 1872 by the Roman Catholic Church and closed in 1961.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard testimony from survivors about serious sexual and physical abuse, manual labour, and the spread of illness at the school. It had a large population of Métis children.

The commission, which documented stories from survivors and issued a final report in 2015, has a record of 10 student deaths at St. Bernard.

Survivor Frank Tomkins testified that staff at the residential school once made a boy who could not control his bowels eat some of his own excrement.

Survivor Rita Evans went to the school for four years and told the commission there was a lot of religious instruction and drudge work, but little emphasis on classroom education.

“We were forever praying and not learning anything, and when I came out of Grade 6, my goodness, I didn’t know nothing you know except work, work,” Evans said.

An inspector, who visited the school 10 years before its closure, said it was developing into an orphanage.

An estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children attended residential schools. The commission documented at least 4,100 deaths.

The Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program has a hotline to help residential school survivors and their relatives suffering trauma invoked by the recall of past abuse. The number is 1-866-925-4419.

More details to come.