Toronto, June 25: The Cowessess First Nation announced a preliminary finding yesterday of 751 unmarked graves at a cemetery near the former Marieval Indian Residential School. This school was operated from 1899 to 1997 in the area where Cowessess is now located, about 140 kilometres east of Regina. Children from First Nations in southeast Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba were sent to the school. But, the First Nation took over the school’s cemetery from the Catholic Church in the 1970s.

Earlier this month Cowessess started using ground-penetrating radar to locate unmarked graves. It was not immediately clear if all the remains are connected to the residential school. Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme spoke at a virtual news conference yesterday morning. “This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves,” Delorme said. “We have hit 751 unmarked graves”.

Delorme said there may have at one point been markers for the graves. He said the Roman Catholic Church, which oversaw the cemetery, may have removed markers at some point in the 1960s. However, he said it was not immediately clear if all of the unmarked graves belonged to children, but that there were oral stories within Cowessess First Nation about both children and adults being there. He said some of the remains discovered may be people who attended the church or were from nearby towns.

Delorme said some 44,000 square metres of area were searched by technical teams from Saskatchewan Polytechnic, which the First Nation partnered with for the search. Teams were unable to confirm if there were more remains, but said there were 751 “recorded hits” at the site and noted there could be more than one set of remains at each “hit.” He said the penetrating radar work has a 10 to 15 per cent error rate. Technical teams would be able to provide a verified number in the coming weeks, Delorme said. Thursday’s announcement marked “Phase 1” of the First Nation’s search efforts, he said. The community would continue search efforts in the area based on oral history.

Last month the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in British Columbia announced the discovery of a burial site adjacent to the former Kamloops Indian Residential School that preliminary findings indicate contains the remains of 215 children.

Delorme said the community wants to put names to the people in the graves in the coming months. He said the community would be treating the site “like a crime scene.” He said he would like to see a monument to be built at the site that includes the names of those identified.

In the pic: Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme from the Photo Gallery of Cowessess First Nations at https://www.cowessessfn.com/new-gallery/