THE BATTLEFORDS — Weeks after ground penetrating radar took place near the Ridge, four archeologists from the University of Saskatchewan were back in the Battlefords June 4 to 11, performing ground penetrating radar in search of missing children at Battlefords Industrial School Children's Cemetery, the resting place of over 50 children who passed while attending the former residential school.
This comes weeks after Mosquito Grizzly Bear's Head Economic Development Corp. began a radar search near the ridge before ground was broken on the development of a $5.8 million interpretive centre with the support of MGBHLM chief, council, and traditional knowledge keepers.
"[We're] looking for additional graves that may be unmarked, some of these graves may have been purposely concealed from those with not great intentions," Micaela Champagne, member of Canoe Lake First Nation and grad student at the anthropology department, said.
There are only 51 names on the cairn in the graveyard and 72 markers, but there are 74 graves. The group of four archaeologists from the university feel there are more there, which marks the reason for the search.
"Currently, we're scanning the grounds to locate some of those missing children ... to make sure we do find these children who are not recorded and that their story is going to get known," Champagne said.
Working until June 11, the USask team has survivors directing them to areas where they'll be searching for bodies, places where residential school survivors have identified where children have gone missing or have stories that suggest children might have been buried there.
"From every place that we've worked at, every residential school across Turtle Island, we have heard and listened to survivors, and know that in areas of known graves, those priests and nuns all used these areas [gravesites] as a way to conceal additional children's bodies, because it's somewhere where it's not obvious to look."
The ground penetrating radar searches the area for signs of ground disturbance, distinct from pipes, rodent burrows, or tree roots, then the team uses their knowledge and other evidence to comb through the data and identity areas that are likely sites.
Champagne also noted that, "...[we] eliminate areas that have less confidence ... we have experience and the knowledge to know that what we see are children's graves, and not anything else."
Champagne, who's been working on her master's thesis since 2021, work that examines reconciliation within Canada and its relation to residential schools and inter-generational survivors of residential schools herself.
A lot of the work Champagne does is motivated by wanting to carry some of the weight, the burden from survivors, and making sure they know that they're heard and that their truth and experiences are valued.
The GPR team has worked closely with other first nations across Western Canada, though they don't disclose the locations of missing children.
"We don't disclose the locations just because there is a very large uptick of denialism in Canada, and we've had threats of people wanting to dig up children's remains to prove or disprove, but we know that even physical evidence for these denialists, it's not enough for them.
"Just hearing the truth from survivors should be enough for people, but unfortunately, it's not."
