Deninu Kųę́ First Nation in Fort Resolution, N.W.T., says it has finally found the places where five children and two adults were buried, after years of searching for unmarked graves linked to the former St. Joseph’s Residential School.
In a news release Thursday afternoon, the First Nation said the sites were located on Mission Island.
“Who they are and the circumstances surrounding their deaths has yet to be determined,” the First Nation wrote.
Elders and members of Deninu Kųę́ First Nation have long known that there were unmarked graves in the area. The First Nation has spent several years searching for burial sites, work that began in 2022 and which was guided by elders like Angus Beaulieu, who suggested Mission Island was a place where many people were buried before the school was moved to Fort Resolution and became fully operational in 1910. The school had originally been on Mission Island and ran from 1857 to 1890 in that location.
It said initial efforts to find burial sites weren’t successful, and ground-penetrating radar didn’t reveal anything, but elders insisted Mission Island was the place to look. The First Nation’s investigating team ultimately analyzed air photos and marked an area that seemed to be protected from logging and fire. They brought in cadaver dogs, who located a site.
“Upon excavation by the [Deninu Kųę́ First Nation] archaeology team, burials have been found,” the First Nation wrote, adding that the seven sites located so far are “just the beginning.”
Those involved in the search have estimated that there could be up to 60 unidentified burial sites linked to the school. Residents have for years called for an investigation into how many unmarked graves there are.
Earlier this year, Deninu Kųę́ First Nation Chief Louis Balsillie drew attention to the community’s efforts to exhume the unidentified remains of students from the former residential school’s cemetery — efforts he accused the territorial government of interfering with.
Balsillie and Tu Nedhé-Wiilideh MLA Richard Edjericon have also been vocal about the community’s efforts to return the remains of one child, Alma, who died while at residential school in the 1940s, to her home community.
In Thursday’s news release, Balsillie stated that he wants the territory to acknowledge that the burial sites hold the remains of children “who died due to untoward circumstances — that they died due to causes that would have been investigated had it happened in a non-Indigenous boarding school.”
