A Manitoba First Nation has begun investigating the site of the primary residential school that operated in the region for more than a half-century.
Cross Lake Band/Pimicikamak Cree Nation announced Tuesday that it’s looking into St. Joseph’s Residential School, which closed in 1969, as discoveries of unmarked graves at residential school sites continue across the country.
“It is now our duty to search and locate many of the missing and murdered children from the residential institutions,” Chief David Monias said.
“We are unsure where they were buried, or if the list we have is an actual record of the true numbers of children who had died in the residential institutions.”
Monias said there were originally two residential schools in Cross Lake, and the community knows of at least one mass grave containing the bodies of children who were killed in a fire at one of the buildings.
Searchers intend to use ground-penetrating radar as well as information from area knowledge keepers and residential school survivors in their investigation, which will include the creation of a database of all students who attended the school between 1912-1969, as well as a permanent monument to their lives.
A total of 85 children have already been identified, they said Tuesday.
Monias said he’s expecting cooperation from all levels of government — as well as the Catholic church — in tracking down any relevant documentation about the school, its students, and any medical information about how they died.
“When you lose an Elder, you lose a part of your history and similarly, when you lose a child, you lose a part of your future.
“This was the intent of the Canadian government and the religious institutions that were part of the residential school era.
“It is called genocide.”
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