1113 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

Something about this story doesn’t add up. Will be interesting to hear the outcome of exhumation and forensic work. If it’s what they claim it is, truly shocking and sickening.

 

Coming soon!

[Victoria Watcher]

When Will The New York Times Correct Its Flawed Reporting on ‘Unmarked Graves’?

 

The same reporter who helped spark Canada’s 2021 social panic has published a new article walking back his original errors—but those mistakes remain uncorrected on the Times’ website.

 

 

 

https://quillette.co...nmarked-graves/

 

 

Earlier today, I published a Quillette article outlining recent developments in the (slow) process by which Canadians have come to terms with the “unmarked graves” social panic of 2021. As noted in that piece, the original scandal was a blockbuster news story, following on claims that the secret resting places of 215 (presumably murdered) Indigenous children had been located on the grounds of a former school in Kamloops, British Columbia. But in the three-plus years that have passed since then, not a single actual body (nor any human remains) has been discovered at the identified locations, much less 215 of them. Despite this, few of the media outlets and politicians who originally hyped the “unmarked graves” scandal have admitted that Canadians were misled (with the notable exception of the National Post newspaper).

 

Much of the misinformation emerged from popular misconceptions concerning ground-penetrating radar (GPR)—the technology that had been put forward as providing definitive evidence of the graves’ existence. Credulous reporters seem to have been unaware that GPR landscape surveys do not directly indicate graves, much less bodies or skeletons. Rather, they indicate soil dislocations that can be generated by numerous artefacts, including old pipes and tree roots. The only way to determine what actually lies beneath the surface is typically through excavation—a step that hadn’t been taken in Kamloops when the “unmarked graves” scandal first broke (and which, oddly, still hasn’t been done to this day).

Among the many reporters who seem to have been ignorant of GPR’s limitations was Ian Austen of The New York Times, who wrote not one but two error-packed stories at the height of Canada’s “unmarked graves” meltdown. Perhaps more than any single journalist, he exacerbated the flow of misinformation, as his erroneous reports lent the authority of the Times brand to the lurid narrative that emerged.

Scandalously, none of his mistakes have been corrected in his two stories—despite the passage of almost 40 months since their publication, and despite the fact that (as we shall see) Austen himself now seems to understand the limitations of GPR technology.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 September 2024 - 09:44 AM.

[Nparker]

I have completely lost faith in any of the mainstream media - for good reason.

[Victoria Watcher]

Residential school survivors say the federal government is keeping the truth about those institutions in the dark by cutting back on funding for records and ground searches looking for unmarked graves of children who died at the schools.

 

More than 150,000 children were forced to attend residential schools, and many survivors detailed the horrific abuse they suffered to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. An estimated 6,000 children died while attending the schools, although experts say the actual number could be much higher.

 

In 2021, after numerous First Nations reported locating what appeared to be human remains on the sites of former residential schools, Ottawa stepped in with more than $116 million to search for unmarked graves and to memorialize the children who died. As of March 2024, the government had actually provided $216 million through 146 different funding agreements.

 

 

https://cheknews.ca/...ending-1217050/

 

 

 

 

$216M, not a single confirmed grave found.  

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 September 2024 - 07:26 PM.

[Jhon Steve]

Time to get rid of all public schools.

But, how can we get rid of these public schools?

[max.bravo]

4 days ago: 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...chool-1.7336974

 

George Gordon First Nation announces 8 more potential unmarked burial sites near former residential school Findings come in addition to what the Sask. First Nation described as 14 anomalies detected in its 2022 search

 

George Gordon First Nation announced Friday that the second phase of its geophysical investigation has detected eight anomalies, consistent with the shape, size and pattern of graves or burials close to the site of the former Gordon's Indian Residential School.

These findings are on top of what the First Nation described as 14 anomalies detected in its Phase 1 search that ended in 2022. The First Nation is located about 95 kilometres north of Regina.

"This recent discovery deepens our collective grief and strengthens our resolve to continue the search for truth and justice for all those affected," George Gordon First Nation Chief Shawn Longman said. 

The surveyed area, he said, has two zones of interest that will require further investigation. 

"We will continue to explore every area with utmost care and respect, ensuring that no possibility is overlooked," Shawn Longman said.

In 2021, George Gordon First Nation started the journey of trying to locate unmarked graves of former residential school students who never returned to their families, then-chief Byron Bitternose said after the band had completed Phase 1 of the process. 

A committee was formed in 2021 to honour the experiences and memories — and "to acknowledge the genocide and the impact this collective legacy" has on members of the George Gordon First Nation, Bitternose said at the time. 

Sarah Longman, chair of the unmarked graves committee, said on Friday that they identified the areas to investigate after consultation with residential school survivors, descendants and community members. 

She said "this is just the beginning," and that they will be entering Phase 3 of the search, where they'll expand the area of interest where the anomalies have been found. The areas, she said, were and will continue to be identified after consultation with residential school survivors, descendants and community members. 

 

Phase 2 was the first time, Sarah Longman said, that the band received a federal grant to continue its work. 

"We have covered very small, small sections of this very, very large reserve. To continue to do the searching, we're going to require a whole lot more support," she said. 

Phase 1 of the search involved probing four different areas within the First Nation, where the chief had said they'd detected one high-probability site.

Phase 1 and 2 are complete. Entering Phase 3. Still no plans to actually dig up the earth and see if there are bodies. Just expanding the areas where they are using GPR to find 'anomalies'.... hmmm

Edited by max.bravo, 01 October 2024 - 09:03 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Phase 2 was the first time, Sarah Longman said, that the band received a federal grant to continue its work.
"We have covered very small, small sections of this very, very large reserve. To continue to do the searching, we're going to require a whole lot more support," she said.



^ you don’t say.

[spanky123]

$216M, not a single confirmed grave found.  

 

No but lots of very wealthy band members I am sure.

[max.bravo]

I find it interesting that the woman who conducted the first GPR survey at Kamloops where they "found #215 dead children, some as young as 3 years old" has quietly slipped into the background. IIRC she was present at the first news conference, but has not been keen to go deeper into this issue.

[max.bravo]

Here is a powerpoint presentation hosted on the Canadian Archeological Society website by Dr. Sarah Beaulieu, Ground Penetrating Radar Specialist about her findings at Kamloops. No date provided, but I wonder if this is what sparked the whole thing?

https://canadianarch...ah_beaulieu.pdf

[max.bravo]

There's a good timeline of events and info here: https://indianreside...s.com/kamloops/

And a transcript of Dr. Beaulieu's initial presentation of her findings here: https://indianreside...-15July2021.pdf

 

 

Who hired Dr Sarah Beaulieu to do the GPR work?

At a media event in Kamloops on 15 July 2021, Dr Sarah Beaulieu gave the first and only public presentation of her GPR findings. In reply to a question from Kim Mackrael of the Wall Street Journal as to ‘how you became involved in the first place’, Dr Beaulieu stated that she had been recommended for the GPR work by Dr Eldon Yellowhorn of Simon Fraser University. Dr Yellowhorn has been asked to confirm this, but has not done so.

Who hired Dr Beaulieu, and on whose recommendation, thus remains unclear. Moreover her detailed written report, reviewed by ‘a designated review team of five archaeologists very experienced in GPR’,⁶ has never been revealed. Chief Casimir initially assured the media and general public that Dr Beaulieu’s full written report would be released in June, but on 15 July 2021, the same day Dr Beaulieu gave her first and only oral presentation, that promise was revoked by the Kamloops Band’s media consultant, Racelle Kooy, as reported by the Globe and Mail:

 

 

Racelle Kooy, a spokesperson for the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, said a full copy of Dr. Beaulieu’s report would not be released to the public and media, but that “the core of the findings are contained in the release and Dr. Beaulieu gave an extensive presentation today.”

The CBC’s Fifth Estate program raised the possibility that Dr Beaulieu was involved in the spring of 2021 in a commercial project across the Yellowhead Highway from the former residential school on a site on which the Kamloops Band proposed to build a new grocery store. Throughout the Fifth Estate program aerial footage of the future grocery store site is shown, as well as footage of Dr Beaulieu and two unidentified women in hard hats using a GPR machine on the graded site there. It may be that Dr Beaulieu was working at that site prior to the May long weekend in 2021, and it was thus a simple matter for Ted Gottfriedson and Diena Jules to arrange for her to do GPR work in the apple orchard area in the Kamloops Band’s Heritage Park on the May long weekend.

In any event, Dr Beaulieu did do GPR work in the apple orchard area in the Heritage Park on the May 21^st to 24^th long weekend, and according to the Fifth Estate’s Gillian Findlay, ‘Ted and Diena were among the very few who knew the work was happening’. This seems plausible as Canada was in the midst of Covid 19 lockdowns, and the Heritage Park was closed. Ted Gottfriedson said he was not present in the apple orchard while the GPR work was being done. Thus, Diena Jules may have been the only person who was present besides Dr Beaulieu:

 

Gillian Findlay: But Diena made a point of going to the orchard to watch the survey and to comfort the children she believes can hear her.

Diena Jules: I said, Don’t be afraid. They are just here looking for you. They are going to be confirming what our oral history has told us, what I’ve always known. You know, it’s going to be OK. We’re here to find you, finally.

Edited by max.bravo, 01 October 2024 - 11:30 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

I won’t call it a hoax, but certainly opportunists are playing us, or at least the Liberal government.

I’m with Jonathan Kay on this file, stop calling them graves for now, stop proposing laws to make denial of anything a crime, and get diggin’! Those potential bones aren’t getting any younger. Coming up on four years later.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 October 2024 - 11:32 AM.

[max.bravo]

On this Jan 2023 podcast Dr. Sarah Beaulieu basically tells us why she felt comfortable authoritatively stating they found bodies (using GPR -- which cannot definitively make that distinction)... 

 

https://blogs.ufv.ca...23/chasicast-6/

 

 

Dr. Sarah Beaulieu: When the news in Kamloops broke last year, one of the things that was really at the forefront was this notion that we had used science. For some reason, whatever reason, with non-Indigenous Canadians from Turtle Island, the idea that we are able to name names of the children or have actual numbers of the children that went missing means more than the actual stories, the oral histories that come from the Indigenous communities that have been talking about this for generations. And for me it’s really important that we are upholding and raising these oral traditions and these stories. It’s important that the protocols, these traditions, are upheld and are held equally to science — the science that we’re using behind GPR.

...And for me that means, as an outsider, that everything from conducting a survey, to preparing a report, to the interpretation of the results, to the review of the report needs to be run by the community itself. It’s not for me, for instance, to present the data. It’s not for me to speak on behalf of the community. The data is owned by the community. Everything is centered around — heart-centered around — the community itself. I am working with and for an Indigenous community when I’m invited in. But it’s not me doing this research for the interest of myself, to publish, or for any other reason than to support a community.
 

 

I think this lady is very entrenched in the Reconciliation stuff... to such a degree that the "Indigenous ways of knowing" are more important than the "science" she brings. Essentially she is using her PhD to give credibility to some very not-credible claims. 

 

 Dr. Sarah Beaulieu: We talk about decolonizing, where we’re dismantling these aspects of the structures of colonialism within our teaching and learning, the education system as well. It’s about going further with Indigenizing, which is — we’re more there today than we certainly were 10 years ago or 20 years ago. But with Indigenizing it’s really about raising up Indigenous knowledge systems, Indigenous worldviews, feelings, thought systems, the lenses and perspectives. It’s about giving voice, too. So I think the Indigenizing aspect is really important to how we disseminate this information within the classroom, and also for really basic things like our land acknowledgements. It’s not just about spewing out a very generic statement because it’s an obligatory thing to do.

 

Edited by max.bravo, 01 October 2024 - 11:41 AM.

[max.bravo]

I won’t call it a hoax, but certainly opportunists are playing us, or at least the Liberal government.

I’m with Jonathan Kay on this file, stop calling them graves for now, stop proposing laws to make denial of anything a crime, and get diggin’! Those potential bones aren’t getting any younger. Coming up on four years later.

You can't simply do that though. The ancestors will attack you.

 

 

Dr. Sarah Beaulieu: Absolutely. The trust-building within a community is not something that happens overnight. It can take months or years to garner the trust from a community when you’re working with them. Part of it for me is reputation and being recommended by one community to another community for the work that I’ve done. Importantly, it’s about honouring protocols. Cultural protocols take place before, during, and after any survey that I conduct.

As an outsider — there are 200 Indigenous communities in BC alone, there’s 30 language groups, six dialects. It’s about not broad sweeping which is something that sometimes a lot of outsiders do, is assuming that what you do in one community is something that you — a template that you can then use in another community.

For instance, with protocols in one community — I won’t get into them because every community is different of course — but you may use ochre. You would put it on your temples and your forearms when you’re in a working in a cemetery situation. And that would be so that the ancestors don’t accidentally bump into and make you sick by accident.

However, using ochre within another community is something that only men would wear. And so knowing the differences between this is really important. Presenting tobacco for honouring and gift giving, and sweet grass — cleansing yourself with rose water is really important. I’ve been asked to clean my equipment when I leave so that I don’t get sick.

Calling your name back from a site is another really important one, to make sure that you don’t leave a part of yourself behind. And so I think it’s important to be humble and to acknowledge what we don’t know and to not presume that we know everything about every Indigenous community that you’re working with. But also to be vocal about the fact that you are wanting to learn, and to be present, and to be part of it, and to participate in a respectful way. And that you are invested in doing the work in the best way possible.