Possible burial sites found near former Saskatchewan residential school, First Nation says
This story was created by Brittany Boschman, Brittany Poitras, Lori Deets, Randi LaRocque, Tyrone Perreault, Jamin Mike and Hannah Scott of First Nations University of Canada, with instructors Patti Sonntag and Shannon Avison, in partnership with the Investigative Journalism Foundation.
A search near the former Beauval Indian Residential School in northwest Saskatchewan has identified 60 “potential unmarked burials” outside the bounds of the community cemetery, English River First Nation announced on June 12.
The discovery marks the latest development in the national reckoning with the residential school system legacy.
“This is not a final number,” Councillor Jenny Wolverine told a gathering assembled on the former school grounds. “We will not stop until a full and thorough investigation is complete.”
She then called for a moment of silence to honour the children who never returned home.
The discovery follows an earlier announcement two years ago that a search had uncovered the remains of 79 children and 14 infants in formerly unmarked graves within the cemetery.
The First Nation’s press release stated the new sites outside the cemetery “are extremely concerning and may indicate illicit activity.”
The sites were identified using ground-penetrating radar in areas pointed out by school survivors, said Dawn McIntyre, a member of Canoe Lake Cree First Nation and project manager of the Returning Home Society (RHS), a group searching for missing children from the Beauval school.
The sites include land near the original school building, which burned in 1927; the grounds of the rebuilt school, which has since been demolished; and the area around a residence once used by priests, McIntyre said.
“While we cannot yet say with scientific certainty what the sites represent, we do know that the soil in these locations has been disturbed, removed and replaced,” she said.
“Our hope is to rule out our worst fears,” she added, “but we must also be prepared to face them,” she said.
The RHS plans to further analyze the sites using cadaver dogs and soil spectroscopy.
The First Nation has not yet contacted police, said McIntyre. The decision on whether to pursue a criminal investigation will follow community consultations.
McIntyre said the number of missing children is unknown. Few records are available and school authorities sometimes transferred students between institutions. Survivors have said they were given little information at the time.
She said that her team believes additional records are available from federal departments and has requested them.
A spokesperson for Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.
The Beauval Indian Residential school operated for 89 years, housing students from the Dene, Cree and Métis families living beside the region’s many lakes, according to archival documents available in the Investigative Journalism Foundation’s Residential Schools database.
The school, run primarily by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Roman Catholic religious order, was long known for overcrowding and harsh living conditions. Scarce records document outbreaks of tuberculosis and measles, along with a fire that killed 19 boys and a nun in 1927.
“We were always hungry,” said Leon Abraham Gunn, a member of English River First Nation, who attended the school in the 1960s.
He recalled frequent physical violence, including being thrown against the wall and hit with a ruler.
“I don’t know how many times I got strapped,” he said.
At its peak, the school dormitories held up to 140 students annually. Control of the institution transferred from church authorities to a local board in 1985. The school closed in 1995 and was later demolished.
Two staff members later received prison sentences for sexually assaulting students under their care.
Rick Laliberte, Beauval’s mayor and a former student, told the IJF that the school had been a cornerstone of his community, employing many local residents and shaping the town’s identity.
But among former students, he said, ”We hear echoes and whispers of accidents that took place here.”
He called for a thorough investigation to ensure the fate of every student was properly documented.
The discovery of the disturbed sites has reverberated across the province, he added, affecting numerous First Nations and Métis communities whose children were once sent to Beauval.
Survivor accounts and available records show that parents had little power to protect or advocate for their children. Students were allowed about a month at home per year early in the school’s history, according to an archival document.
Locals still point to the location of a former “parents camp,” where hopeful families, barred from entering the grounds, once waited in hope of catching a glimpse of their children.
On their behalf, some survivors still wait.
This article was also published by MBC and the Investigative Journalism Foundation Investigative Journalism Foundation