Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation says 62 potential unmarked graves found on northern Alberta reserve
Listen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, in conjunction with the University of Alberta, announced Tuesday that it has identified 62 potential unmarked graves after a two-year search of its land.But the First Nation, which is located in northern Alberta, says it’s too early to say whether any of the sites of interest contain human remains.The Indigenous community has been looking for the remains of 82 children between the ages of seven and 16, who went to St. Francis Xavier Residential School between 1907 and 1962. The former school’s site is in the First Nation.“It’s important for us to find out if that’s in fact where children are buried,” Chief Sheldon Sunshine said in an interview Tuesday.Members of the First Nation joined Kisha Supernant, director of the University of Alberta’s Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology, to present their findings at a community meeting Tuesday in Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, some 330 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Supernant said the search for possible graves involves using various technologies, a team of dogs, as well as information from residential school survivors. A number of the potential unmarked graves are in areas that are known to be recent or older cemetery locations, specifically ones in close proximity to St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and the Hudson's Bay post, Supernant said. Nine of the 62 are not within a cemetery location, she said, but rather in areas where there's likely to be buried human remains."We have no idea if these are children from the residential school or not,” Supernant said. “So these need to be treated as independent pieces of information. It's possible that some of them could be, we really just don't know that yet.”Sunshine said he’s been thinking about searching the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation since 200 potential unmarked graves were identified on the former grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C. in 2021.Technology and documents used for searchSupernant’s team uses a combination of technologies, including drone imagery, various kinds of ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetic conductivity, magnetic radiometry and a relatively new technology called soil spectroscopy. They also use detection dogs, information from historic and genealogical records and gather input from community members in terms of where to look for potential unmarked graves, she added. “So over the past two years, we've been out on the nation several different times using these technologies in what we call areas of interest, places that have been indicated where there could be individual graves, there could potentially be mass graves.” Potential versus confirmedAn area can be identified as being a potential unmarked grave when technologies show an area underneath the ground to be the right shape, size and right depth of a grave. But Supernant noted that technology alone cannot determine whether it is the site of someone’s remains.If a site is identified as a potential unmarked grave, confirming who's buried there is another individual choice for each nation, she said. "There is an ongoing conversation in many communities right now about what those next steps might look like, what answers the community might need, and we're looking at more forensic approaches of exhumation or excavation of some kind." Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation is applying for funding to continue the work through a federal program called the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund.“I think this is just the beginning of a lot of research,” Sunshine said. “There’s a lot more work to be done, it’s a lot of heavy work.” Indian Residential School Crisis Line Support is available for anyone affected by their own experience at residential schools or intergenerational trauma, or by reporting on the issue.A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.
