The places where children are believed to be buried cannot be disturbed because the Nation from which the child originated cannot be identified. Some protocols must be followed before exhuming what remains of the little sacred bodies; each Nation has different rules for disturbing the deceased. Because of this, it is hard to prove how many children are buried at the Kamloops Residential School.
Before this secret Kamloops graveyard, anonymous burial sites were documented by the University of Saskatchewan in 1974. A cairn, pictured below, erected at the Battleford Industrial School was placed at the cemetery after a total of 72 graves were excavated by staff and Archaeology students from the University of Saskatchewan. Back in 1974, the Indigenous people didn’t have the political strength to oppose the excavation like the current Nations surrounding Kamloops.
There are too many possible mass graves to mention, so lastly, I will mention only two more of many mass graves of disrespect.
1) Lemay Forest, Manitoba, contains an unmarked mass burial ground for Indigenous, Metis, and European children from the Asile Ritchot orphanage (or Asile Rache). Our parents told us to walk “in a graceful manner”, with kind, loving thoughts, because you never know when you might be walking on someone’s resting place — their grave.
2) Magdaline Laundries originated in Europe but were adopted in Canada. While it was touted as safe places for young women who had made bad choices, they were workhouses providing free labout to the churches that operated them. In Europe, one of these church businesses decided to sell some land and asked a man to move some burried boxes to another location. He discovered that there were skeletons in the boxes and reported it.
Image from (Ben Feist) CBC News · Posted: May 24, 2017 4:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: May 24, 2017
Dr. Bryce, Government Medical Inspector for Residential Schools
From a newspaper article, Saturday Night, Bryce said:
“Indian residential schools should compel the attention of Parliament. Indian boys and girls are dying like flies in these situations [Residential Schools] or shortly after leaving them….” Click button below to read more details.
Life at Residential Schools for Indigenous Children
After the Department of Indian Affairs ignored Dr. Bryce’s report, he published his own book, The Story of a National Crime. It detailed how the churches, with government approval, purposefully ignored the health issues resulting from unsanitary conditions and even an electric chair which was used for discipline. Click button below to read more details.
Survival Rate for Indigenous Students at Residential Schools
Bryce predicted that the death rates associated with residential schools were much higher than initially believed, closer to 42% after carefully analyzing the data he gathered. Accordingly, only 58 [or 58%] of 100 children and youth who attended the residential school would eventually be reunited with their families.
If you are specifically intrerested in Dr. Bryce’s book click this link. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aqOakvnjg6cHEL29fQwyB4GM83bazFO3?usp=sharing
