Another day, another story about another mindless scavenger hunt for unmarked graves associated with yet another indigenous reserve whose only prize is the money and notoriety earned from the search itself. This time it’s the Saddle Lake reserve in Alberta, linked to the former Blue Quills Indian Residential School which served this community and seven neighbouring ones. .According to the Memorial Register for Blue Quills of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), the successor of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission charged with reporting on the history, operation, and legacy of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools:.Roman Catholic missionaries established a boarding school at Lac la Biche in 1891. The school buildings were moved to the Saddle Lake First Nation in 1898 and the school was renamed Blue Quills. The school was relocated again in 1931 to a location near St. Paul, Alberta. When the federal government announced that it would be closing the school in 1970, Saddle Lake First Nation members occupied the school in protest. Their occupation ended with an agreement that saw Blue Quills become Canada’s first residence and school controlled by First Nations people. The high school and its residence closed in 1990.. Blue Quills .Presumably, the Saddle Lake band and the others associated with the boarding school were so satisfied with how the Catholic religious orders were running it that they were eager to see it operate for another 20 years..Though an August 9, 2022, CBC story that reported the proposed search for unmarked graves at the school’s location near St. Paul referred to the protest to keep the school open, this was uncritically attributed by its reporter to the following statement by Sherri Chisan, President of University nuhelot'įne thaiyots'į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills, an indigenous education centre operated by seven reserves:."Our ancestors, our parents, and our grandparents said, 'No, we'll take over the school, we'll run it and it will be a place where our people can recover and restore what was taken from them in residential school,'".What Chisan failed to mention is that from 1970 to 1990 the curriculum taught at the school was the same assimilationist British-based one taught in all Alberta schools, something the CBC reporter also missed reporting..Chisan also opined, "We've heard from many survivors over the years about burials happening and children dying," the sole reason for an aimless search for bodies buried 50 or more years ago. Aimless is being combined with inconclusive given that using ground penetrating radar to discover burials outside known cemeteries is a questionable activity because it can’t reveal organic material, among other shortcomings..But the search, which began on August 9, will proceed regardless of any questions about its feasibility because it has “… funding from Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada with further support coming from university resources,” all monies involuntarily expropriated from Canadian taxpayers..Money was never mentioned when Chisan argued that:."… there's a sense of urgency because a lot of the people who were here as children are aging, and with all of the attention that has come in the last year [the discovery of soil anomalies arbitrarily elevated to “unmarked graves” beside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia], people want to know.".The question is “want to know” exactly what? Something the CBC reporter had no curiosity about..What he did reveal is that: the search is scheduled to take five days; analysis of the results is not expected for months; the area being studied in this first phase is the south lawn of the main former school building; “this is only the first of future projects as the site totals hundreds of acre;” and “We know this is going to take many years.".The official story, one based on fake news, ended there..The real story I will now tell reveals that many years and many millions of dollars don’t need to be spent for a search that has already been completed at no cost..It is based on research by an investigator who wishes to remain anonymous. That researcher started by examining the NCTR Memorial Register, a series of lists containing the names of “the children that never returned home from the schools.” This led to searching for the death records of the students listed as having never returned home from the Blue Quills schools..What was found is that of the 27 children listed as having died while attending the Blue Quills school, one is listed twice and three did not belong on the list (two were adults and one was an infant). Of the remaining 23, nine died of tuberculosis, a disease that still disproportionately affects indigenous people. The last of the children died 80 years ago, suggesting that the assertion that "We've heard from many survivors over the years about burials happening and children dying" is based more on myth than actual knowledge..More important still, 18 of the children whose Alberta death records or notarized death certificates, many signed by their parents, were readily found and are posted here. Of those for whom data were available, none were listed as having died under mysterious or criminal circumstances or buried anywhere other than on their home reserves..That there are no missing or secretly buried Blue Quills Indian Residential School students is also proven by the absence of any relatives looking for named loved ones who never returned home from the school. Again, the CBC reporter neglected to ask about this..Conversely, if there are some missing children and none of their relatives have ever been looking for them, this represents an unimaginable level of callousness..By way of comparison, in all of Canada, only two distant relatives have been identified as looking for their ancestors. In both cases, the children were found “buried” in their provincial archives whose records showed they were properly buried on their home reserves..Two quickly located students is surely a far cry from the “15,000 to 25,000 … maybe even more” children Murray Sinclair, former Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, has arbitrarily claimed may be missing..As for the community cemeteries in reserves across Canada, unmarked and neglected graves containing the remains of known and documented Indian Residential School students are the norm. Their unmarked nature is the result of the disintegration and lack of replacement of their original wooden crosses; their neglect is the result of individual and community indifference to the condition of these burying places. This suggests that indigenous leaders care far more about finding phantom burials than protecting and preserving the graves of the known children who died at residential schools followed by a Christian burial in their reserve cemeteries..Invented by indigenous activists, generously funded by the federal government, and endlessly promoted by the CBC, is there any wonder that skeptical researchers have long called the issue of missing indigenous children the great Canadian burial hoax?.Hymie Rubenstein is editor of The REAL Indian Residential Schools newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology, The University of Manitoba
