Warning: This story deals with disturbing subject matter that may upset and trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.
The Williams Lake First Nation is assuming ownership of the grounds of the former St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School, an institution of assimilation that operated in the Cariboo region for nearly a century.
The First Nation and B.C. government bought the 13.7-acre property for $1.2 million from its private owners, with $849,000 coming from the province.
“We continue to talk about how we can heal as communities, we continue to talk about how the government needs to step up, and this is stepping up in a big way in our eyes,” Ku̓kpi7 Willie Sellars said in a Tuesday press conference.
“This is a big step … setting a precedent of what reconciliation can be and should be in the province of British Columbia.”
Like all residential schools, St. Joseph’s history is laden with sickening violence. Children from more than 40 First Nations were sent to there to be stripped of their Indigenous languages, cultures and identities.
The institution operated from 1891 to 1981 and has since been demolished. An additional property, the Onward Ranch, was added in 1964 to support the operational needs of the school. The sites were mostly run by Roman Catholic missionaries.
According to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, one child died of exposure after trying to escape St. Joseph’s in 1902. Another died and eight others became ill after eating poisonous water hemlock, which parents believed was a response to discipline at the school.
In the 1980s and ’90s, two former staff pleaded guilty to charges related to sexually abusing students.
Williams Lake First Nation, however, has since unearthed other horrifying findings through its archival research and interviews with survivors and their descendants: Harrowing stories of gang rape, child molestation, confinement, exposure to extreme conditions, intentional starvation, slave labour and beatings to the point of unconsciousness.
Through ground-penetrating radar sweeps, the First Nation has detected 159 possible burial sites on the grounds.
Sellars said the land transfer goes hand-in-hand with that ongoing investigation.
“It gives us peace of mind that we’ll be able to do that work uncontested moving forward into the future,” he explained.
“We eventually do want to get to a position where we are exhuming, we are excavating, but there is a process we have to follow not only by holding up not only the Williams Lake First Nation, but every single other nation that is impacted, and holding up their ceremony and their culture, and their students that also went to that school.”
The ku̓kpi7 said the First Nation’s intention is to preserve the site and make it a safe and comfortable place for communities, former students and their families to visit and hold ceremonies.
“Looking into the crystal ball of what that site is going to look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, would be how we put up a monument and honour every single one of those survivors, every single one of those kids that went to that school, in an impactful way that we can participate in this reconciliation education that is happening in this country and this region.”
Residential school denialism is still very much alive in Canada, he added, but communities like Williams Lake First Nation have proof of the horrors that took place in the church- and state-sponsored system. Protecting the site for educational purposes will “be putting those denialists to bed,” Sellars said.
Negotiations with the province to purchase the land began in 2021, but conversations with its private landowners have been ongoing for decades, Sellars said, involving “multiple generations of leadership.”
Murray Rankin, minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, said the ownership transfer ensures the former grounds will be safe from other possible development and can become a “place of reflection, remembrance and healing.”
“All over the province, Indigenous communities are continuing their search for missing children. It’s painful. It’s difficult work and it has to be done,” he said.
“Where we can be of assistance, we will be there as allies. We as a government have a responsibility to do our part to face up to the uncomfortable truths of colonialism and that’s what we are going to try to continue to do.”
Rankin said the purchase of the former residential school grounds was a “unique opportunity,” as few such sites are on private land in B.C.
The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line (1-800-721-0066) is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of their residential school experience.
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