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215 graves at Kamloops residential school | Discussion, news, and what we know so far


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#761 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 January 2022 - 09:04 PM

AFTER SEVEN MONTHS of recrimination and denunciation, where are the remains of the children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School?

___________



According to the register of baptisms, marriages and burials from 1885 to 1933, there are certainly graves present on site of children who died at the residential school, but also those of many adults and children under five years of age from the surrounding area. “There was a mixture of everyone in that graveyard, in that cemetery,” said local resident Pearl Lerat and her sister, Linda Whiteman, who attended Marieval residential school from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. Pearl said “the sisters’ parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are buried there along with others from outside the First Nation,” whites and natives together. According to other residents living nearby, the graves had crosses and headstones until the 1960s when a priest allegedly removed them because the cemetery was in “terrible shape.”




By Professor Jacques Rouillard

Special to THE DORCHESTER REVIEW. Jacques Rouillard is professor emeritus in the Department of History at the Université de Montréal.


https://www.dorchest...-has-been-found

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 January 2022 - 09:06 PM.

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#762 A Girl is No one

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 05:44 AM

We knew that. One of the chiefs of another tribe with such a “discovery” said as such. But the outrage machine buried her voice just like it will bury these sisters’ voice. Why let facts get in the way of a good international outrage, anything to tell Canadians of European descent and their children how evil we are. Kids are being told that every day at school, Told to be ashamed of their roots and ancestors. It’s no better than what was done to kids in the residential schools.
I really abhor this “justice by revenge” approach that the left is pushing everywhere.
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#763 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 05:53 AM

First, acclaimed Cree playwright/novelist Tomson Highway’s memoir , Permanent Astonishment, was published by Penguin-Random House. Highway’s experiences at a residential school did not embitter him. On the contrary, he credited that nine-year stint for the foundational skills that led to creative self-realization. But saying so publicly, once permissible, has become a form of blasphemy in the chattering classes.

 

In his 2018 Quillette essay on Canada’s “cult of the noble savage,” which included remarks about his abrupt departure from editorship of The Walrus magazine, Jonathan Kay explained Highway’s “problematic” stature amongst progressives. In 2015, Kay commissioned an article from Highway in anticipation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report. Highway’s submission was “brilliantly crafted,” but “heretical.” The piece was never published because, as a white colleague explained to Kay, it would upset “sensitive constituencies” — Indigenous groups and their non-Indigenous allies, as well as donors — who “had come to see our magazine as a reliable voice for the approved position on this issue.” It was then, Kay realized, “that what I had entered was not a journalistic enterprise, but a sort of [religious] congregation.”

 

 

https://nationalpost...dential-schools


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#764 spanky123

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 07:30 AM

AFTER SEVEN MONTHS of recrimination and denunciation, where are the remains of the children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School?

 

We already 'know' that there are 215 bodies of dead, tortured and mutilated children. That and other atrocities 'encouraged' the Feds to agree to pay another $6B in payments to the FN.

 

Why would anyone want to do anything that might 'correct' that narrative.


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#765 A Girl is No one

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 07:43 AM

First, acclaimed Cree playwright/novelist Tomson Highway’s memoir , Permanent Astonishment, was published by Penguin-Random House. Highway’s experiences at a residential school did not embitter him. On the contrary, he credited that nine-year stint for the foundational skills that led to creative self-realization. But saying so publicly, once permissible, has become a form of blasphemy in the chattering classes.

In his 2018 Quillette essay on Canada’s “cult of the noble savage,” which included remarks about his abrupt departure from editorship of The Walrus magazine, Jonathan Kay explained Highway’s “problematic” stature amongst progressives. In 2015, Kay commissioned an article from Highway in anticipation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report. Highway’s submission was “brilliantly crafted,” but “heretical.” The piece was never published because, as a white colleague explained to Kay, it would upset “sensitive constituencies” — Indigenous groups and their non-Indigenous allies, as well as donors — who “had come to see our magazine as a reliable voice for the approved position on this issue.” It was then, Kay realized, “that what I had entered was not a journalistic enterprise, but a sort of [religious] congregation.”


https://nationalpost...dential-schools

Bravo Barbara Kay and National Post.

Will there be a round of apologies and firings for publishing this article? I hope not. This could then be the start of real reconciliation.

#766 Moderation

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 09:50 AM

 . Kids are being told that every day at school, Told to be ashamed of their roots and ancestors. It’s no better than what was done to kids in the residential schools.
 

Lets tell a balanced truth if it can be agreed upon.   

 

Comparing current school history curriculum whether you agree with it or not is not even close to the general experience of children attending a residential school.


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#767 spanky123

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 02:39 PM

It’s no better than what was done to kids in the residential schools.

 

At least some of the people teaching at residential schools believed they were doing good by teaching the children how to read and write. It amuses me when I see lawyers and politicians lament about how tough residential schools had made their lives when you consider what the alternative would have been. 

 

Some FN had a difficult time and were treated poorly. A lot of Japanese, Chinese, French, Black, Jewish, Irish, Italian, Armenian and other nationalities had it tough as well. Perhaps we should have an entire high school curriculum that self-loathers can send their kids to so that they can be enlightened.


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#768 Moderation

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 04:07 PM

At least some of the people teaching at residential schools believed they were doing good by teaching the children how to read and write. It amuses me when I see lawyers and politicians lament about how tough residential schools had made their lives when you consider what the alternative would have been. 

 

Some FN had a difficult time and were treated poorly. A lot of Japanese, Chinese, French, Black, Jewish, Irish, Italian, Armenian and other nationalities had it tough as well. Perhaps we should have an entire high school curriculum that self-loathers can send their kids to so that they can be enlightened.

Were any other alternatives considered or offered?

 

To compare FN residential schools to most of the other groups in Canada who experienced hard times  is a poor comparison. The Japanese interment and restrictive government polices to Asian population are also reflective of the views of the times similar to the view of FN people and designed to keep others out. The FN are called that now for a reason.  To say some FN people had a hard time and were treated poorly is a massive understatement.

 

Here is an article that I think is fair and supports my statement.

 

https://www.facinghi...e-indian-canada

 

Agree or disagree on the current state of affairs about reconciliation.  


Edited by Moderation, 21 January 2022 - 04:19 PM.

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#769 LJ

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 07:54 PM

The claim that 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools between 1883 and 1997 now routinely appears in the media, embellished by descriptions such as children “forcibly removed from their families” or “ripped from their parents’ arms.”  Cree artist Kent Monkman depicted this fiction in his painting “The Scream” showing priests, nuns, and Mounties grabbing little Indian children from their terrified mothers.

But how true are these incendiary claims?  At best misleading, and at worst, false. 

If “forced to attend school” simply means compulsory school attendance that applies to all children, then the claim is misleading. School attendance, or its equivalent in homeschooling, is required of all Canadian children, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, as it is of children in all modern societies.

Indeed, school attendance was not even required of Indian children until 1920, when an amendment to the Indian Act made them subject to the same compulsory attendance as all others had been. However, prior to 1920 Catholic and Protestant residential schools had operated in one form or another for more than half a century. Indigenous children attended those schools because their parents wanted them to attend. Education was seen as a benefit.

Even after 1920, enforcement of attendance for Indian children was weak.  As late as 1944, records show that upwards of 40% of Indian children went to no school at all.

Typically, Indian parents who wanted their child to attend a residential school filled out an application which was forwarded to Ottawa for approval. Not all applications were accepted, as there was insufficient capacity for all children wishing to attend. 

In a similar vein, dissatisfied parents sometimes withdrew their children from the school. In 1922, for example, all parents in the community withdrew their children from the residential school at Kitimat and refused to allow them to return until the principal signed a paper affirming that the children would be “properly fed.”

Children who were “forced to attend” were mainly child welfare cases. From 1920 to the 1960s, the main option for Indian children from orphaned or troubled homes who could not be taken in by extended family was an Indian agent’s discretionary placement of a child in a residential school. 

And increasingly, from the 1940s until the mid 1960s, Indian agents took children out of homes that the agent deemed to be inadequate or dangerous and placed them in residential schools. For example, the 1967 Caldwell Report notes that in some Saskatchewan residential schools as many as 80% of the students were there primarily for child welfare reasons. Those neglected children were indeed forcibly removed from their parents, just as some children today, both Indigenous and other, are removed from inadequate parenting for their own safety.

But most Indian parents did not have those problems. They simply wanted their children to have the same education that other children received to help prepare them for modern life.

Joe and Balazee Highway were an example of such parents. 

They lived on a northern Cree reserve, where poverty and death were far too common, and they knew that education offered the best chance for their children to escape that fate. They loaded their children onto a silver Norseman floatplane and sent them south to the Guy Hill Residential School, near The Pas, Manitoba. Nine years later their son—acclaimed playwright and writer Tomson Highway—graduated at the top of his class. In his new book Perpetual Astonishment (reviewed here by lawyer Peter Best,) Highway described the time he spent at residential school as “nine of the best years of my life.”

As we know, not every student who entered a residential school had such a positive experience. There were negative experiences as well. But the positive experiences, like those of Tomson Highway, must be remembered if we are to have a balanced historical portrait.

The picture of 150,000 students being “forced to attend” and “forcibly removed from their parents” is simply not accurate. Kent Monkman’s painting is a work of mythic imagination, and should not be mistaken for history.

Brian Giesbrecht is a retired judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba. Tom Flanagan is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary.


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#770 Moderation

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 09:27 PM

First lets focus on the question/ comment I started with, 

 

To compare FN residential schools to most of the other groups in Canada who experienced hard times  is a poor comparison.............. ...................................................  To say some FN people had a hard time and were treated poorly is a massive understatement.

 

We are not totally in disagreement. Up to 150,000 indigenous children may have attended residential schools. My reference makes no claims that children were forcibly removed from families or ripped from parents arms. I think we agree it is incendiary language.

 

We agree that compulsory school attendance for FN children was required in 1920 and about 60% attended. I do not know when compulsory attendance was required for non FN children. There were some major differences in some goals of residential schools:

 

In requiring compulsory schools was.....Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question........

 

Those statements have been seen by many as reflecting the prevailing attitudes of government officials that the first peoples were to be eradicated as distinct nations and cultures. Residential schools were seen as one of the tools.

 

With respect to the removal of children because of social or welfare issues it still seems to reflect a problem and failure then as it still does now.

 

For these reasons: :

To compare FN residential schools to most of the other groups in Canada who experienced hard times  is a poor comparison.............. ...................................................  To say some FN people had a hard time and were treated poorly is a massive understatement.


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#771 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 10:42 PM

So we have all these graves all across Canada, and not a single band has said let's very carefully exhume / dig up one or two small areas and see what we have?



#772 A Girl is No one

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 08:52 AM

Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs… they have already benefited $40B (and counting) out of this.

#773 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 25 January 2022 - 02:50 PM

A geophysical survey of a small segment of the land surrounding a former residential school in B.C.'s Central Interior has identified 93 sites that "display characteristics indicative of potential human burials," representatives of the Williams Lake First Nation announced on Tuesday.

Chief and council revealed preliminary findings of their investigation into the former St. Joseph's Mission Residential School and nearby Onward Ranch based on a probe of 14 hectares of land from 470 hectares that have been identified as areas of interest.

https://www.cbc.ca/n...dings-1.6326467







It’s not like the graves are 100 feet down. Get a shovel and take a look at a couple.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 January 2022 - 02:50 PM.


#774 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 25 January 2022 - 05:05 PM

‘93 is our number’: Williams Lake First Nation releases residential school findings

 

 

93 is our number!   But we do not know a single persons name.   And the government and churches are accused of obscuring records?   Seems the families forgot too.

 

https://www.wltribun...inary-findings/



#775 spanky123

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Posted 25 January 2022 - 05:06 PM

‘93 is our number’: Williams Lake First Nation releases residential school findings

 

 

93 is our number!   But we do not know a single persons name.   And the government and churches are accused of obscuring records?   Seems the families forgot too.

 

https://www.wltribun...inary-findings/

 

 

Love how they report hectares to make the number smaller. Their "site of interest" is about 1,200 acres which is huge. I suspect that you can scan most 1,200 acre sections of southern Vancouver Island and find potential grave sites.


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#776 Moderation

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Posted 25 January 2022 - 06:55 PM

Officially Canada has been using hectares rather than acres since the 1970s despite that most stores still offer prices in pounds, Many people still use feet and inches for height. 

 

I spoke recently with a 50 year old and said my thermometer said 50 degrees. the next question was what is that in real numbers. To some degree it depends on when you were born and when you went to school.


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#777 Moderation

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Posted 25 January 2022 - 10:20 PM

I have read a number of recent articles.

 

The school at some time also included a ranch which could explain an unusually large area for a school ,,,,,, 470 hectares. After some archive and historical research an area  of 14 hectares was selected to be surveyed.



#778 spanky123

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Posted 26 January 2022 - 08:23 AM

Officially Canada has been using hectares rather than acres since the 1970s despite that most stores still offer prices in pounds, Many people still use feet and inches for height. 

 

I spoke recently with a 50 year old and said my thermometer said 50 degrees. the next question was what is that in real numbers. To some degree it depends on when you were born and when you went to school.

 

Whenever I refer to realtor.ca or any other property site they report in acres.



#779 spanky123

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Posted 26 January 2022 - 08:24 AM

I have read a number of recent articles.

 

The school at some time also included a ranch which could explain an unusually large area for a school ,,,,,, 470 hectares. After some archive and historical research an area  of 14 hectares was selected to be surveyed.

 

Even 14 hectares is 30% larger than the Ross Bay Cemetery which has 27,000 graves.



#780 Mike K.

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Posted 26 January 2022 - 09:24 AM

Whenever I refer to realtor.ca or any other property site they report in acres.

 

Including BC Assessment.


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