it was an emotional thursday afternoon Star Blanket Cree Nation (SBCN) announced its findings of at least 2,000 underground inconsistencies in the former Qu’Appelle Indian Residential school Located in LabretSask.
Although it is not believed that all 2,000 are anomalies. unmarked graves, the organizers feel that further investigation will prove something. The search has brought with it a sense of vengeance.
“Now we know, there is evidence,” said SBCN chief Michael Starr. “What we knew in our hearts and minds, what we were being told. This is proof.
The anomalies were detected using ground-penetrating radar, an instrument made by Axiom Exploration Group Limited. Now comes the difficult task of sifting through the data and understanding what might be a grave or just a few sticks and stones. One strategy being considered is meniscus core drilling.
In the early stages of the SBCN IRS ground search project team, they were invited to Cowes First Nation to hear about their project and the trials and tribulations of ground search. The Cowes Project team shares their knowledge, including what mistakes they learned and what to do and what not to do. After the tour, the SBCN project team felt they had the information they needed to move forward.
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,Once we had that site visit, we needed to select a group who were subject matter experts in Ground Penetrating Radar,” said project lead, Sheldon Poitras.
“We had a lot of interviews, a lot of different companies came and visited with the project team, with the chief and the council, and eventually we chose a group called Axioms… They are great to work with. They know stuff and they give us very timely reports on things like scanning data.
Poitras said the project team plans to go off-site as they gather information, hear stories from survivors and others who have heard stories from their loved ones. They said they would work with landowners going through the various stages of scanning.
“Going forward, we will have to meet with these individuals, get their permission, scan the area and see … what we can find,” Poitras said. “The plan to move forward with this is that we now have to come up with a strategy for how we’re going to determine what’s a stone, what’s a piece of wood, what’s gravel, or what might actually be.”
Poitras said there have been discussions with Axiom to do small-scale core drilling, where they pick an area of interest, send a core drill down, collect a sample, bring it up and analyze that for DNA. Let’s test the sample.
“Axiom has been able to do that. They just need a little bit of time to get the technology together and the analysis tools together. And we could probably see something when the spring and summer warm up a bit,” Poitras said.
Dr. Terence Clarke, Assistant Professor in the University of Saskatchewan Department of Archeology and Anthropology, is also part of the Canadian Archaeological Association Working Group on Unmarked Graves. He says he plans to reach out to SBCN to offer his experience.
Connor O’Donovan / Global Regina
“We’re hoping that we can help them with that process,” Clarke said. “They’re just kind of starting out and it’s a long process to go through all the stuff… We’re happy to do that and we’ve done it in many other cases. Either we’ve done the GPR ourselves or we Have come to a later stage and talked about an interpretation, what it could mean or the next stage.
In October 2022, a member of the SBCN security team discovered a fragment of the jaw bone of a child between the ages of four and six. The Saskatchewan Coroner’s Office analyzed the piece, and it is approximately 125 years old, going back to 1898.
“This is physical evidence, physical evidence of an unmarked grave that has been confirmed by both the Filey Hills Police Service and the (Saskatchewan) coroner’s office,” Poitras said. “So, lots of next steps. There’s a protocol, obviously, that we have to follow… We’re already discussing what to do with the remains.”
Connor O’Donovan / Global Regina
The project team is making those arrangements, choosing to honor the remains of the deceased. They will be meeting to engage with the community going forward.
The SBCN IRS Ground Search Project team is hopeful that they can obtain further support and funding to plan excavations to determine what exactly the 2,000 anomalies are.
The Indian Residential School Crisis Line (1-866-925-4419) is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of their residential school experience.
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