On April 20, 2023, the shishalh Nation on BC’s Sunshine Coast broke the news that 40 unmarked graves had been identified by ground penetrating radar (GPR) on land near the former St. Augustine’s Residential School..A visual is circulating on Twitter with a church dripping blood, a shadowy skull in the background, stating churches and government need to be held accountable..Here is an example of a church-run school that was accountable..“We had only children from two different families who were orphans, all of whom were in the school when I got there. The younger boys were half brothers of an Eskimo mother who had died. The other family of three, a boy and two girls, were orphans. Their father returned to the post at Albany to report there was no food in the tent and his wife was ill. While at the post he took ill and died. The Hudson's Bay manager sent out a couple of men with grub and when they got to the tent, the mother was dead with five children around her. The youngest, a baby of two months, was taken by a relative. The eldest, a boy of 16, went with another relative to hunt. The other three came to the school. The youngest of the three died while at the school during a flu epidemic.".– Archdeacon Thomas was at Moose Factory from 1933-1945.As was often the case at residential schools, orphans, or children from families in distress were taken in. Some were raised their entire life at the school. There was no home to go back to. Some children survived at the school, as in the excerpt above from Eric Bays’ book Another Picture, and some children died..In the story above, the baby of two months went to live with a relative. How would that relative describe what had happened that day to the child as it grew up? Would the community remember a family of five children, a deceased mother, and the father that vanished one day? Would the mother’s body have been taken back for burial at the residential school graveyard or buried on the local land or reserve? With no one to tend the grave, it would become unmarked over time..Were the names of the family members clear to the school or trading post? Or were the children assigned names at the school? After all, the father died at the trading post; was he a regular trader there? Did anyone know the names of the children? Would those children ever have returned to their community? What memory of events would the 16-year-old have had, other than that his mother had died, and all of his siblings vanished? If he asked where they went, the answer would be ‘residential school.’ Did they ever come back?.Or would this multiple tragedy be remembered simply as people gone missing; many of them to a residential school, and that they never returned? Thus, the assumption would be they all died at residential school and must therefore be in unmarked graves somewhere..In the video clip about the shishalh Nation’s GPR findings, CTV opens by saying that the chief is “pleading for privacy now and questions later.” Yet the chief states GPR found “40 graves, shallow graves, only large enough to lay in the fetal position.” Ground penetrating radar cannot identify graves or bodies, only ground disturbances..Thus, it is awkward the chief creates an aura of fact with rather lurid detail that GPR cannot define..CTV states the shishalh Nation is “ensuring privacy of their survivors and grieving community by providing these interviews and footage to news organizations and turning down interview requests for now.”.This is an atypical form of news reporting, to accept the footage, story and statements from any entity without question and publicize it ‘as is.’ CTV’s journalistic standards states “CTV News is committed to producing journalism that is accurate, fair and complete. Our journalists act with honesty, transparency, and independence, including from conflicts of interest.”.Chief Joe says, “For the children we have found, we are going to let them rest right now.”.Unfortunately, the fact is ground disturbances are the only things that have been found, not children, bodies or graves — at least not with any evidentiary certainty. CTV seems to be in breach of its own journalistic standards..Out of this tragic story, there is one positive element. One child has been found..In an APTN interview with Deborah Baker, about the GPR discovery, she says her grandfather’s brother, Simon, attended St. Augustine’s Residential School. She says in 1935 her grandfather wrote to the school asking what became of him. In the National Truth and Reconciliation Records, there is a documented case of Simon Francis Jeffries who attended St. Augustine’s. This is the only documented ‘Simon’ in that year who died. Simon died in St. Paul’s hospital Sept. 30, 1935, of an intestinal obstruction. He was buried in the Sechelt Reserve..Is Deborah Baker aware her relative’s cause of death is known and also where he was buried? Is that grave on reserve a marked grave today?.Simon is not a case of a missing child. Nor is his case one of malfeasance. And the record-keeping was quite accurate for Simon, but perhaps Simon’s death was not well communicated to her grandfather, who would also have been young at the time. Perhaps he only remembered that his brother went to residential school and never came home..That said, there likely are unmarked graves to be found all over B.C. For instance, according to the Knowledge Network, when Spanish Flu swept through British Columbia in 1918-1919 “…it’s believed a third of the province fell ill, and 4,000 died — the equivalent of 37,000 British Columbians dying today.”.St. Augustine’s opened in 1904. As eminent historian Robert Carney noted in the early days, residential schools were the hub for social services and medical care. Thus, the schools often tended to many people who may not have attended the school at all. Some of them likely were sick and died and are buried in or near the residential school graveyard..Robert Carney is the father of Mark Carney, the UN Climate Czar. Mark is curiously silent on these matters and his father’s legacy of historical truth about Indian Residential Schools..In the meantime, viewers should be wary of news conference video that's supplied by people who don’t allow reporters to ask questions. People who claim to be protecting their survivors, while implying they know details of graves that could never be identified by GPR are deceiving the public..Canadians should be aware China exploited the issue of Indian Residential Schools unmarked graves on the world stage to deflect a UN investigation into its genocidal actions against the indigenous Uyghur people of the autonomous XinJiang province..Thus, Canadians must be alert to the further potential for China to exploit such GPR findings to drive a wedge into Canadian society for its own geopolitical gain..Michelle Stirling researched, wrote, and co-produced 41 half-hour historical shows about Southern Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Hugh Dempsey, then curator of the Glenbow Museum. She also researched and wrote a six-hour mini-series (unproduced) about the North West Mounted Police and its trek west to stop the genocide of the Blackfoot Nation by whiskey traders. Stirling is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists and the AAAS.
On April 20, 2023, the shishalh Nation on BC’s Sunshine Coast broke the news that 40 unmarked graves had been identified by ground penetrating radar (GPR) on land near the former St. Augustine’s Residential School..A visual is circulating on Twitter with a church dripping blood, a shadowy skull in the background, stating churches and government need to be held accountable..Here is an example of a church-run school that was accountable..“We had only children from two different families who were orphans, all of whom were in the school when I got there. The younger boys were half brothers of an Eskimo mother who had died. The other family of three, a boy and two girls, were orphans. Their father returned to the post at Albany to report there was no food in the tent and his wife was ill. While at the post he took ill and died. The Hudson's Bay manager sent out a couple of men with grub and when they got to the tent, the mother was dead with five children around her. The youngest, a baby of two months, was taken by a relative. The eldest, a boy of 16, went with another relative to hunt. The other three came to the school. The youngest of the three died while at the school during a flu epidemic.".– Archdeacon Thomas was at Moose Factory from 1933-1945.As was often the case at residential schools, orphans, or children from families in distress were taken in. Some were raised their entire life at the school. There was no home to go back to. Some children survived at the school, as in the excerpt above from Eric Bays’ book Another Picture, and some children died..In the story above, the baby of two months went to live with a relative. How would that relative describe what had happened that day to the child as it grew up? Would the community remember a family of five children, a deceased mother, and the father that vanished one day? Would the mother’s body have been taken back for burial at the residential school graveyard or buried on the local land or reserve? With no one to tend the grave, it would become unmarked over time..Were the names of the family members clear to the school or trading post? Or were the children assigned names at the school? After all, the father died at the trading post; was he a regular trader there? Did anyone know the names of the children? Would those children ever have returned to their community? What memory of events would the 16-year-old have had, other than that his mother had died, and all of his siblings vanished? If he asked where they went, the answer would be ‘residential school.’ Did they ever come back?.Or would this multiple tragedy be remembered simply as people gone missing; many of them to a residential school, and that they never returned? Thus, the assumption would be they all died at residential school and must therefore be in unmarked graves somewhere..In the video clip about the shishalh Nation’s GPR findings, CTV opens by saying that the chief is “pleading for privacy now and questions later.” Yet the chief states GPR found “40 graves, shallow graves, only large enough to lay in the fetal position.” Ground penetrating radar cannot identify graves or bodies, only ground disturbances..Thus, it is awkward the chief creates an aura of fact with rather lurid detail that GPR cannot define..CTV states the shishalh Nation is “ensuring privacy of their survivors and grieving community by providing these interviews and footage to news organizations and turning down interview requests for now.”.This is an atypical form of news reporting, to accept the footage, story and statements from any entity without question and publicize it ‘as is.’ CTV’s journalistic standards states “CTV News is committed to producing journalism that is accurate, fair and complete. Our journalists act with honesty, transparency, and independence, including from conflicts of interest.”.Chief Joe says, “For the children we have found, we are going to let them rest right now.”.Unfortunately, the fact is ground disturbances are the only things that have been found, not children, bodies or graves — at least not with any evidentiary certainty. CTV seems to be in breach of its own journalistic standards..Out of this tragic story, there is one positive element. One child has been found..In an APTN interview with Deborah Baker, about the GPR discovery, she says her grandfather’s brother, Simon, attended St. Augustine’s Residential School. She says in 1935 her grandfather wrote to the school asking what became of him. In the National Truth and Reconciliation Records, there is a documented case of Simon Francis Jeffries who attended St. Augustine’s. This is the only documented ‘Simon’ in that year who died. Simon died in St. Paul’s hospital Sept. 30, 1935, of an intestinal obstruction. He was buried in the Sechelt Reserve..Is Deborah Baker aware her relative’s cause of death is known and also where he was buried? Is that grave on reserve a marked grave today?.Simon is not a case of a missing child. Nor is his case one of malfeasance. And the record-keeping was quite accurate for Simon, but perhaps Simon’s death was not well communicated to her grandfather, who would also have been young at the time. Perhaps he only remembered that his brother went to residential school and never came home..That said, there likely are unmarked graves to be found all over B.C. For instance, according to the Knowledge Network, when Spanish Flu swept through British Columbia in 1918-1919 “…it’s believed a third of the province fell ill, and 4,000 died — the equivalent of 37,000 British Columbians dying today.”.St. Augustine’s opened in 1904. As eminent historian Robert Carney noted in the early days, residential schools were the hub for social services and medical care. Thus, the schools often tended to many people who may not have attended the school at all. Some of them likely were sick and died and are buried in or near the residential school graveyard..Robert Carney is the father of Mark Carney, the UN Climate Czar. Mark is curiously silent on these matters and his father’s legacy of historical truth about Indian Residential Schools..In the meantime, viewers should be wary of news conference video that's supplied by people who don’t allow reporters to ask questions. People who claim to be protecting their survivors, while implying they know details of graves that could never be identified by GPR are deceiving the public..Canadians should be aware China exploited the issue of Indian Residential Schools unmarked graves on the world stage to deflect a UN investigation into its genocidal actions against the indigenous Uyghur people of the autonomous XinJiang province..Thus, Canadians must be alert to the further potential for China to exploit such GPR findings to drive a wedge into Canadian society for its own geopolitical gain..Michelle Stirling researched, wrote, and co-produced 41 half-hour historical shows about Southern Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Hugh Dempsey, then curator of the Glenbow Museum. She also researched and wrote a six-hour mini-series (unproduced) about the North West Mounted Police and its trek west to stop the genocide of the Blackfoot Nation by whiskey traders. Stirling is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists and the AAAS.
