Unmarked graves found in BC

[JohnB]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...ren-explainer/

I wonder how many more are out there.

[JD848]

That's a big time crime ,you can bet there's more out there. VERY SAD INDEED.

Karma is a real bitch sometimes.

Animals the whole dam lot who ever did this .

JD

[Sooner]

After this find, I'm sure there will be more searches with ground radar at all other known locations now.


Hopefully DNA will be able to figure out who these kids belonged too.

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Terrible. Horrific and reminds me of WW1 and WW2.

[Cement Bench]

wife noticed this a couple of days ago
wonder what prompted the looking for the grace? and why now?

[Grizzly Adams]

Forgive me, have they actually found bodies or just possibles, using ground penetrating radar ? We had a thing going in Sundre a few years back. Someone surveyed Snake Hill with that and pronounced it an old Native cemetery. When they started digging, there was nothing to be found. One has to wonder if the same people were involved.

Grizz

[Scott N]

The article is only visible to paid subscribers, can you copy and paste OP?

[Ronji]

This is tragic in so many ways.

But there is a ton of questions.

Media saying it was a mass grave?
Or was it 215 anomalies with the radar?
Does anybody know when this may have occurred?
Was it grave sites due to natural causes?
Was this during Spanish influenza? Or some other outbreak?
Are the graves located at the school?
Was this school run by government or the churches?
Somebody must have known something.

I sure hope they were not murdered and there are errors with that radar.

[elkhunter11]

Looking at who ran these schools, I am not surprised that this type of thing could happen, without the public knowing about it.

[wally338]

This school was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1978.

[fishtank]

Originally Posted by wally338

This school was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1978.

[JDK71]

Originally Posted by Ronji

This is tragic in so many ways.

But there is a ton of questions.

Media saying it was a mass grave?
Or was it 215 anomalies with the radar?
Does anybody know when this may have occurred?
Was it grave sites due to natural causes?
Was this during Spanish influenza? Or some other outbreak?
Are the graves located at the school?
Was this school run by government or the churches?
Somebody must have known something.

I sure hope they were not murdered and there are errors with that radar.

great questions to be asked

[Trochu]

Originally Posted by wally338

This school was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1978.

The article clearly states otherwise, but maybe your information is correct.

[urban rednek]

The article, Published May 31, 2021, with the important dates in bold:

The Kamloops residential school’s mass gravesite: What we know about the 215 children’s remains, and Canada’s reaction so far

In B.C.’s Interior, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation has found the remains of children as young as 3 on the site of what used to be Canada’s largest residential school. Here’s what we know, and how it’s rekindled Indigenous demands for justice and action


Every former residential-school site in Canada should be examined for more mass gravesites like the one found last week near Kamloops, B.C., Indigenous politicians are urging. “It is a great open secret that our children lie on the properties of the former schools – an open secret that Canadians can no longer look away from,” said Ontario NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa, echoing calls from leaders of the Assembly of First Nations and other groups.
Residential schools were “a tragedy that existed here in our country and we have to own up to it,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday, promising more help for Indigenous peoples and supporting a call from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh for an emergency House of Commons debate on the subject.
Where is the Kamloops Indian Residential School?

Built on the territory of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in the southern B.C. Interior, the Kamloops Indian Residential School was at one point the largest of Canada’s institutions designed to separate Indigenous youth from their parents and cultures. It operated from 1890 to 1969, mostly under a Catholic order called the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, but the federal government ran it as a day school for nine more years before it closed in 1978.
How were the 215 children found?

Previously, the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s registry could confirm only 51 deaths at Kamloops from 1914 to 1963. But the Tk’emlups community long suspected that more children were buried on the grounds and tried for about 20 years to find them. Recently, a grant from B.C.’s Pathway to Healing program allowed the nation to pay for ground-penetrating radar, which was used over the Victoria Day weekend to find the site. The survey team’s preliminary findings were made public on May 27; a fuller report is expected in June.
What do we know about these children?

Some of the remains belonged to children as young as 3. They’re believed to be previously undocumented deaths, Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir says. But it could be a while before the remains can be excavated, identified and returned to their home communities for proper burial; forensic protocols for mass gravesites can be complex and rigorous. It could require help from the B.C. Coroners Service or the Royal B.C. Museum, depending how the Tk’emlups and other nations decide to proceed.

What is a residential school? Some context
Who ran residential schools in Canada?

From the 1870s to the 1990s, residential schools were part of a systematic federal policy to assimilate Indigenous children into European culture, based on racist assumptions that their own cultures were inferior. Children were separated from their parents and lived in poorly funded schools where federal- or church-run staffs punished them for speaking their own languages. Physical and sexual abuse, malnutrition and disease were common. Over all, there were about 130 residential schools, the last of which closed in Saskatchewan in 1996.

Survivors pressed the government and churches for compensation and apologies, a process that led to a $2-billion settlement and the creation of the TRC. Its final report in 2015, based on interviews with more than 6,000 witnesses, said the schools amounted to cultural genocide and are inseparable from the present-day problems Indigenous people face, from high rates of poverty, suicide and incarceration to the loss of Indigenous lands and traditions.
How many people died in Canada’s residential schools?

The TRC’s Missing Children Project has so far documented more than 4,100 deaths in the schools, but the full tally could be as high as 6,000.

The 2015 report noted huge gaps in the available records of deceased students’ names, genders or even causes of death. Six of the TRC’s “calls to action” (71 to 76) have to do with missing children and burials, and demand a clear plan to tell families where their lost loved ones are buried and make sure cemeteries are well maintained.
Mourning across Canada

Community gestures: Friday’s developments in Kamloops led to spontaneous gestures of solidarity across Canada, such as the leaving of empty shoes in front of legislatures, churches and public buildings.

Official responses: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, federal cabinet ministers and provincial premiers have expressed sympathy about the news, which Mr. Trudeau called “a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history.” Mr. Trudeau had flags on federal buildings lowered to half-mast; the premiers of Manitoba and Saskatchewan have done the same for flags at their legislatures, as have some of the mayors of Canada’s large cities for municipal buildings. Many of the flag-lowerings will last 215 hours, or nine days, in memory of the 215 children.
Since the Tk’emlups nation’s grim discovery, Indigenous leaders and advocates have pressed Ottawa for more action to help residential-school survivors and follow through on the TRC’s recommendations. These include:

More investigations of mass gravesites: “A thorough investigation into all former residential school sites could lead to more truths of the genocide against our people,” said Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
Statutory holiday: Federal MPs were already nearing the final vote on C-5, a bill to make Sept. 30 a national day to commemorate residential-school victims and survivors, when the Kamloops discovery was made public. The bill is headed for the Senate next.

[tbiddy]

This has some pretty good information about residential schools

http://www.anishinabek.ca/wp-content...em-Booklet.pdf

Still can’t believe the last one closed in ‘96.

[IronNoggin]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams

Forgive me, have they actually found bodies or just possibles, using ground penetrating radar ? We had a thing going in Sundre a few years back. Someone surveyed Snake Hill with that and pronounced it an old Native cemetery. When they started digging, there was nothing to be found.

Yep. Deep breaths and hold on until we know what is actually underground there...

Nog

[1899b]

The good ol Catholic Church.... shameful once again....

[bobtodrick]

Originally Posted by IronNoggin

Yep. Deep breaths and hold on until we know what is actually underground there...

Nog

Lemme guess... there’s no real proof of the Holocaust either.

[hal53]

Originally Posted by bobtodrick

Lemme guess... there’s no real proof of the Holocaust either.

Huh?????........

[Trochu]

Originally Posted by IronNoggin

Yep. Deep breaths and hold on until we know what is actually underground there...

Nog

We recently were doing some digging around a communications building. As part of the SOP, the owner wanted GPR performed, in addition to One Call, Private Sweep, and hydrovaccing. We called multiple vendors and the best we got was "I might, maybe be able to identify a conduit at 1.5 m, probably not". I'd be curious to know what kind of GPR they used and who did it. They also likely have a sandier soil down there, so they can likely "sweep" to greater depths.

[1899b]

Originally Posted by hal53

Huh?????........

He being sarcastic me thinks. Actually I’m pretty positive...

[Sundancefisher]

Trudeau was PM from 1968 to 1979.

All deaths should be forensically investigated.

Sad that this tragedy has been known for so long and only now seems to get media traction.

[hal53]

Originally Posted by 1899b

He being sarcastic me thinks. Actually I’m pretty positive...

...as was I......

[bobtodrick]

Originally Posted by IronNoggin

Yep. Deep breaths and hold on until we know what is actually underground there...

Nog

Lemme guess... there’s no real proof of the Holocaust either.

[GENINC]

Originally Posted by bobtodrick

Lemme guess... there’s no real proof of the Holocaust either.

Lol you really want to be heard, huh?

[Topwater]

So what is the assumption? Mass murders by the church? The school was run for like a hundred years and through the depression as well. Coulda been all kinds of things like TB for instance and over the course of a hundred years means a couple deaths a year. I know the immediate reaction is always outrage with out knowing any facts just assume the worse

[bobtodrick]

Originally Posted by GENINC

Lol you really want to be heard, huh?

No, but until we do have more information we shouldn’t be downplaying what may be a tragic event.
I really do hate to say it but this attitude does show the racism in our society.
Some here seem to have the attitude that it’s First Nations, so there must be a reasonable excuse.
If the new was Catholic priests molest 100 white choirboys there would be an uproar, no questions asked.

[hogie]

Sounds like 215 graves, not a mass grave pit. Unmarked or did the wooden markers get destroyed over time? Spanish flu? Polio? TB? Countless other diseases that there were no medicines for .

Walk through an old cemetery, might be surprised how young people died. Child mortality was high for many years.

I'm sure there was some bad that happened, but to jump to a genocide mass grave pit is a stretch.

[hal53]

Originally Posted by bobtodrick

No, but until we do have more information we shouldn’t be downplaying what may be a tragic event.
I really do hate to say it but this attitude does show the racism in our society.
Some here seem to have the attitude that it’s First Nations, so there must be a reasonable excuse.
If the new was Catholic priests molest 100 white choirboys there would be an uproar, no questions asked.

Racist????..really??....it was simply implied that there is very little proven facts so far....nothing more, nothing less...Sheesh!!!!!!!!

[Big Red 250]

Google Residential schools in Canada, it'll also tell you about all the Canadian Prime Minister's involvement including Pierre Trudeau.
If there are to be any costs associated with these murder's of native children. it should be paid By the Trudeau Foundation and the Catholic Church.