Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials: Volume 4

The Working Group on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials recommended that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada carry out research into the location of cemeteries and gravesites in which residential students are believed to be buried. As noted above, well over 3,000 children died while at residential school. It is likely that the majority are buried in school or school-related cemeteries.

This research was complicated by a number of factors. In many cases, there is uncertainty as to the exact geographic location of many schools. The documentary record relating to the existence, operation, and fate of residential school cemeteries is also limited. As a result, the Commission was able to base its work on a representative sample only. The technical experts employed by the Commission carried out site visits to establish the current location and condition of twenty burial locations. In addition, the Commission documented the location and condition of school sites and cemeteries using maps and satellite imagery.

Although comparatively few residential school cemeteries are explicitly referred to within the literature, the age and duration of most schools suggest that cemeteries were likely associated with most of them. In a search for those cemeteries, the area surrounding each school was systematically examined, using the available maps and satellite imagery. In some cases, cemeteries were not evident, but possible cemeteries were detected in a surprisingly large number of others. Success was dependent on the resolution and clarity of the available satellite imagery, and whether the ground vegetation was sufficiently sparse to permit detection of ground features indicative of cemeteries. For the most part, the cemeteries that the Commission documented are abandoned, disused, and vulnerable to accidental disturbance. While there have been creative and heartening community commemoration measures undertaken in some locations, there is an overall need for a national strategy for the documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries.

Most of the initial Canadian residential schools were part of broader missionary campaigns to convert Aboriginal people to Christianity. A church mission was a mini-society, often including a church, convents, a boarding school, hospital, sawmill, a farm, and a cemetery.¹ Community members would be buried in the mission cemetery, as well as students who died at the school. In other cases, residential schools established their own cemeteries. This was the case, for example, with the Battleford and Regina schools in Saskatchewan, and the Brandon school in Manitoba. Each of these schools established a cemetery, despite being located on the edge of an urban community that would have municipal cemeteries.²

In at least one case, Indian Affairs established a cemetery on a residential school property for the burial of Aboriginal patients who died at a nearby Indian hospital (most of these patients were not residential school students). In 1946, land was set aside on the grounds of the Edmonton residential school cemetery for the internment of those Protestant patients who died at the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton whose families could not afford to have their bodies shipped to their home communities. Boys from the residential school cared for the cemetery grounds and dug graves. At least ninety-eight adults and children were buried in the cemetery.³

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, provincial and municipal governments were either not yet established or in their infancy, and cemetery regulations were non-existent or undeveloped. Given the lack of regulation at the time, it appears that most residential school cemeteries were established informally. It is clear that insufficient consideration was given for the continuing care of graveyards upon closure of the residential schools.

As the statistical analysis at the beginning of this report indicates, some students died at the schools. Other seriously ill children were returned home to die, or were admitted to hospitals or sanatoria where some may have died later. Some of the deceased were returned to their families for burial, but others were buried in cemeteries on school grounds, or in nearby church, reserve, or municipal cemeteries. It is not possible to be certain as to the relative frequency with which these alternatives were employed; or how circumstances varied with church policy, through time, or across emerging and evolving geo-political jurisdictions. However, it is clear that Indian Affairs was opposed, for cost reasons, to shipping the bodies of deceased children to their home communities.

The locations of some of the cemeteries associated with the residential schools are known. The exact location of others is currently unknown, or is incompletely documented in the literature. The location of some cemeteries may even have passed from local memory.

Schools often shifted location. Residential schools often went through a succession of rebuilding episodes as older structures became too small, became unusable, were destroyed by fire, or became redundant and were re-established in a more suitable location. The boarding school that began at Lac La Biche (in what is now Alberta) in 1863 then moved to Saddle Lake in 1898 and then finally to a location near St. Paul, Alberta, in 1931.⁴ When the Anglican school at Onion Lake, Saskatchewan, burned down in 1943, the students were transferred to St. Alban’s College, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.⁵ After the Lac La Ronge school was destroyed by fire in 1947, the students were also transferred to Prince Albert.⁶ There, the students were housed in a former Canadian military basic-training complex on the edge of Prince Albert.⁷ By spring of 1948, the boys from St. Alban’s College were quartered at the military camp and trucked to classes.⁸ In 1951, it was decided to move all the students living at the St. Alban’s school into the military camp.⁹

Some burial places are within or near old school grounds, but few seem to have been formally identified and designated by the provincial and territorial agencies responsible for cemetery regulation. Many of these inactive and overgrown cemeteries are not readily identifiable and are not maintained. Without formal documentation, it becomes more difficult to offer protection from contemporary or future land development. Even when considering presently known and maintained cemeteries, some graves may lie unrecognized after the decay and disappearance of wooden grave markers and enclosing graveyard fences. This presents a serious challenge for identifying, commemorating, or protecting unmarked graves and undocumented cemeteries.

One strategy for determining which schools were likely to have cemeteries is to determine which schools were in operation during the periods when the death rates were at an elevated level. As the statistical analysis indicates, the residential school death rate was highest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is illustrated by Graph 3, which shows the annual death rates for the combined Named and Unnamed registers.

Graph 12 is based on statistics provided by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, showing the total number of schools listed on the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement that were in operation in any specific year, along with the number of deaths per year (according to the combined Named and Unnamed registers).

Graph 12

Annual figures for number of residential schools in operation and number of residential school deaths (Named and Unnamed registers combined), 1869–1965

Source: Rosenthal, “Statistical Analysis of Deaths”; Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Indian Residential Schools of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement 2011.

The total number of schools sharply increased after the late 1880s (after the establishment of a formal federal policy on residential schools), forming an irregular plateau on the graph until the late 1930s. Thereafter, they briefly declined during the 1940s and early 1950s, but again climbed sharply to reach a peak of ninety in 1964. After 1972, the number of schools rapidly decreased in all jurisdictions. The last schools and residences closed in the late 1990s.

As a result, the most useful indicator of whether a school had a cemetery is the date on which it commenced operations. Appendix 1 of this report lists the schools that were included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (irsaa), along with their opening and closing dates. Appendix 1 also lists residential schools that operated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and their opening and closing dates, but which were not included in the IRSSA. As a review of the previous graphs indicates, those schools and hostels that opened after 1950 have the lowest probability of student death. They are the least likely facilities to have had dedicated school cemeteries. Those facilities that opened prior to 1950 are the most likely to have cemeteries. In other words, the majority of the schools fall into the category that is likely to have had cemeteries.

The structures of the church mission complexes—the church, boarding school, hospital, and cemetery—remain as enduring features within many contemporary communities. Sometimes, as old buildings deteriorated or burned down, they were replaced with new structures on or near the original sites. In many cases, the old church and its cemetery remain in operation. This is evident at Lebret, Saskatchewan, where the Sacred Heart Catholic church and cemetery remain operating within the townsite, while the adjacent Qu’Appelle residential school was closed and demolished. The school on the Cowessess First Nation, in Saskatchewan, was demolished and replaced with a day school, but the church, rectory, and cemetery remain. The Desmarais school in northern Alberta was demolished upon school closure, but the hospital and cemetery grounds remain in operation. The Cranbrook, British Columbia, school was transformed into a hotel resort and cultural centre adjacent to a golf course.¹⁰ The school cemetery remains visible on land adjacent to the golf course fairways, but it is not clear whether the cemetery remains in use.

In some cases, the school property was taken over by a local First Nation, and the facility continued to serve community functions. In the case of the Kamloops, British Columbia, school, the facility was transformed into a cultural centre.¹¹ Schools such as the one in Birtle, Manitoba, were abandoned after their closure.¹² The Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, school was sold to a private business, abandoned, and later burned down.¹³ The Blue Quills, Alberta, school was taken over by a First Nations educational authority that continues to operate as Blue Quills First Nations College.¹⁴ Part of the school at Chesterfield Inlet in the Northwest Territories was incorporated into a local store.¹⁵

Although most residential schools were established in remote or rural locations, some were established in major centres and became enclosed by urban development. The Roman Catholic school at Squamish in what is now North Vancouver was demolished in 1959 and the land was redeveloped as St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic High School, with the nearby cemetery completely surrounded by residential development.¹⁶ After initially operating on Fort William First Nation, the St. Joseph’s school was moved into the town of Fort William (now Thunder Bay), where it operated until 1968.¹⁷ It was then demolished and replaced with Pope John Paul II Elementary School. At least some of the children who died while attending this school were buried at St. Patrick’s Cemetery. Presbyterian missionaries established the Cecilia Jeffrey school at Shoal Lake along the Manitoba–Ontario border in 1902. The school was moved to land adjacent to Round Lake in Kenora, Ontario, where it operated from 1929 to 1974.¹⁸ The property is presently used for Treaty 3 administrative functions. Two adjacent cemeteries lie untended and overgrown between Homestake Road and the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. A marina parking lot now occupies the former Roman Catholic school site.¹⁹ The cemetery associated with this school is documented in early twentieth-century photographs, but its location has not yet been identified.

Consistent with the lack of policy regarding burial of deceased residential school students, no plan appears to have existed regarding maintenance of cemeteries after school closure. Consequently, the current condition of school cemeteries varies widely. Given the advancing ages of living Survivors or neighbours with first-hand or local knowledge, there is an urgent need for continued work to identify the location of these cemeteries and burial grounds. Such work must include:

Such efforts will facilitate recognition and protection of presently undocumented cemeteries by various municipal, provincial, and territorial agencies responsible for land use planning, environmental impact assessment, and regulation and protection of cemeteries. For many of the cemeteries identified, it is not always clear who owns the land, which ones are registered as cemeteries (or heritage sites), and which entity has responsibility to undertake documentation, commemoration, and ongoing protection.

The current condition of the cemeteries depends on a number of factors. Some cemeteries continued in operation after closure of the associated residential school. Examples include cemeteries at Moose Factory First Nation, site of the Moose Factory school; Couchiching First Nation, site of the Fort Frances school; and Lebret, site of the Qu’Appelle school. In other situations, the residential school grounds (with associated cemetery) became parks or heritage sites, and therefore receive continued maintenance. These include heritages parks such as the one at Mission, British Columbia; and provincial or federal heritage sites, such as Notre Dame des Victoires at Lac La Biche, Alberta, and the McDougall Orphanage at Morley, Alberta.²⁰

Other residential school cemeteries lie abandoned, overgrown, and overlooked, or even forgotten. In some of these cases, the former school sites are isolated from any surrounding community. The first Cecilia Jeffrey school (1902 to 1929) was located somewhere on a peninsula between Rice Bay and Shoal Lake. The former school site could not be identified using the available satellite imagery, and maps are not available for the site. Locating the site of this school and cemetery would require an extensive walking survey throughout this locality (coupled with solicitation of local information). Dense vegetation may impede identification of surface evidence, and very old cemeteries might be difficult to locate in the absence of grave markers. The two cemeteries associated with the second Cecilia Jeffrey school, which opened in Kenora in 1929 and closed in 1974, are much better documented. They would, however, also require a significant amount of fieldwork to more fully identify them. This site contains two cemeteries that operated one after the other. The older one is described as 25 feet wide by 325 feet long (7.6 metres by 99.1 metres) along the south side of Homestake Road, with the second cemetery area located nearby. A brief ground inspection in the summer of 2014 revealed no surface evidence of the older cemetery within the sparse forest, but a few white crosses protrude from the tall grass within the fenced cemetery. Investigation of such sites might involve the removal of obscuring vegetation, the search for subtle changes in the surface that indicate collapsed graves, and site mapping with a grid system. Such site investigation can have significant time and financial requirements, and must be carefully planned to ensure that site documentation does not accidentally disturb or destroy the evidence that is being sought. Prior to any documentation, planning discussions are required that include First Nations, government agencies, municipalities, churches, and landowners.

There are a number of examples where efforts have been made to address the deterioration and neglect of residential school cemeteries. Two cemeteries are associated with the Brandon residential school. The first is on a privately owned campground north of the Assiniboine River. The land was once the site of a public park, known as “Curran Park.” In 1970, the Brandon Girl Guides arranged for a memorial to the cemetery to be placed in the park.²¹ A second cemetery was later established in the rural municipality of Cornwallis. There is a marker on the site that lists the names of eleven students, all but one of whom died prior to 1950.²²

At Fort Providence, Northwest Territories, the site of one of the earliest missionary residential schools in Canada, local initiatives have led to documentation, commemoration, and protection of the cemetery associated with the residential school and the early community, which also included a hospital. Community member Albert Lafferty initiated research into the cemetery in 1992. He concluded that one cemetery, located close to the Fort Providence residential school, had been in use until 1929, when it was abandoned to be used as a potato field. The remains of missionaries buried in that cemetery were relocated to the new cemetery, while the other remains apparently were not relocated.²³ There is no certainty as to how many individuals were buried in the old cemetery. One study states that there were approximately 150 deaths (children and adults) in the Fort Providence region prior to the closure of the old cemetery in 1929. It is not known how many of these individuals were buried in the original cemetery, or how many were residential school students. A monument has been placed on the site. It includes the names of a few adults, but far more names and partial names of many, many children from communities running the entire length of the Mackenzie River valley.²⁴

The Edmonton school closed in 1968 and the property, including the cemetery in which the former patients from the Charles Camsell Hospital had been buried, was transferred to the Alberta government, although many of the patients who died there would also have been sent south from the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Several of them would have been sent south for medical treatment as residential school students. The province of Alberta indicated in 1970 that it intended to place a memorial on the cemetery property, but nothing was done. In 1987, three former hospital employees and the former director of the Edmonton school residence established a committee to ensure that a memorial to the former hospital patients was erected at the cemetery (by then known as “St. Albert’s Aboriginal Cemetery”). With funds raised from the governments of Alberta and the Northwest Territories, they arranged to have the names of each former patient engraved on the marker.²⁵

The value of local information in the process of identifying residential school cemeteries and burial grounds cannot be overstated. For example, sometimes virtually no cemetery information is readily available within the archival records, but knowledge of the existence and location of cemeteries is locally held. Local knowledge was critically important in relocating the cemetery associated with the Red Deer, Alberta, school. When Indian Affairs was contacted for information about the possible location of a cemetery attached to the Red Deer school in 1974, a department official referred the inquiry to a former Red Deer student, Albert Lightning.²⁶

Lightning, whose brother had died at the school, eventually contacted Lyle Keewatin Richards, who began his own search for the cemetery.²⁷ Working in co-operation with the Sunnybrook United Church, Keewatin Richards and others located the former school cemetery.²⁸ During this same period, the cemetery site was investigated as part of an archaeological impact assessment of a proposed development. The burial area included several graves marked with badly decomposed wooden markers. The area was heavily overgrown with forest vegetation, making it difficult to define the extent of the cemetery.²⁹

In 2010, the Remembering the Children Society, made up of the four Cree Nations of Hobbema in Treaty 6 territory (Ermineskin, Samson, Montana, and Louis Bull), the Paul First Nation, Stoney Nakoda First Nations, Saddle Lake Cree First Nation, Whitefish First Nation (Goodfish), the Métis Nation of Alberta, and the United Church of Canada, organized a memorial event in Red Deer that was attended by all three of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissioners.³⁰ The purpose of the ceremony was to consecrate the unmarked graves of children who had died while attending the Red Deer school. This was the first of three such ceremonies and feasts required by traditional Cree protocol.³¹ At the second ceremony, held in 2011, the only remaining grave markers, which had been preserved by the owner of the land on which the cemetery was located, were presented to Elders, who then took them to the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery.³² The third commemoration event took place in June 2013 on the grounds of Sunnybrook United Church in Red Deer. The event included a feast to “Remember the Children of Red Deer Industrial School.”³³

The issue of documenting and protecting residential school cemeteries is extremely important, as urban development, infrastructure expansion, and resale or reutilization of old school lands become more common. This is not a new problem. At the Muskowekwan Education Centre at Lestock, accidental disturbance of unmarked graves occurred during the installation of new sewer lines in the early 1990s.³⁴ A recent debate over the future of the Regina school cemetery (1891 to 1910) serves to illustrate the dilemmas facing many jurisdictions when dealing with the cemeteries, particularly those that now lie abandoned. The Regina residential school cemetery was established on the western edge of the school property at 701 Pinkie Road. It became privately owned in the 1980s.³⁵ In light of proposed development in the area, concern was raised about how best to protect the school cemetery.

An unpublished 2014 report prepared by the Regina Planning Department indicates that the cemetery contains the bodies of First Nations and Métis students as well as the children of the school’s first principal. A 2012 archaeological survey over the south part of the fenced cemetery yielded evidence of twenty-two graves. Documents dating to 1921 indicate that the original cemetery fence was destroyed in a prairie fire that might have also destroyed the wooden marker crosses of up to thirty-five or forty graves.³⁶

The planning document identified and evaluated various strategies for protection of the cemetery for the Municipal Heritage Advisory Committee to consider. The first option involved the City of Regina’s taking no further action. Since the cemetery is registered under the Saskatchewan Cemeteries Act, 1999, the landowner is deemed responsible for ongoing care. The cemetery is also currently registered as an archaeological site.

A second option was for the city to use its authority, under the Cemeteries Act, to compel the landowner to maintain the cemetery at a suitable standard. In this case, this was deemed to be adherence to the guidelines for “dryland vegetation management” (that is, regular cutting of grass within and around the cemetery). This option would ensure some level of maintenance of the cemetery while minimizing the landowner’s financial burden, but would fall short of offering enhanced heritage protection.

A third option explicitly addressed the advisability of differing levels of municipal and provincial designation, commemoration, and protection.

Each of these three options was tempered by complex considerations regarding landowner responsibilities, the cost of site documentation required to facilitate heritage designation, and the potential risk to municipalities of precedent-setting decisions with budget implications. All the options recognized the need for appropriate consultation with First Nations communities from whom the deceased students originated.³⁷ These complex issues will be common to many future discussions about how best to address the maintenance of residential school cemeteries, particularly those that lie abandoned and unmaintained.

Recommendations regarding documentation and protection of residential school cemeteries

Many, if not most, of the several thousand children who died in residential schools are likely to be buried in unmarked and untended graves. Subjected to institutionalized child neglect in life, they have been dishonoured in death. Many Aboriginal people have unanswered questions about what happened to their children or relatives while they were attending residential school. The work that the Commission has commenced in identifying and commemorating those students who died at school and their gravesites needs to be completed.

Collecting, managing, and assessing information about residential school cemeteries can be challenging, given unclear jurisdictional responsibility and concerns about the costs involved. This is evident with the recent debate about appropriate designation of the Regina school cemetery. This work is also complex and sensitive. Former schools might be associated with specific First Nations, but the cemeteries may contain the bodies of children from many communities. They may also contain the bodies of teachers (or their children) who died while working at the institutions. In some cases, the cemeteries remain in operation and receive ongoing care, particularly when they are part of an existing churchyard or are located within a reserve or non-Aboriginal community. But many others lie abandoned and largely forgotten. No one set of recommendations will serve all circumstances. While residential school cemeteries require documentation, commemoration, ongoing care, and protection from disturbance, there is a need for a consultative framework to identify appropriate strategies and then to identify the skills and resources needed to undertake the required work and a set of principles to guide this work.

The documentation, ongoing maintenance, commemoration, and protection from disturbance of residential school cemeteries cross numerous jurisdictions. Aboriginal communities from which students were recruited and where cemeteries are located have vital interest in this work. The federal government funded and regulated the schools, and a number of major Christian denominations operated them. Regulation of cemeteries, however, rests at the provincial and territorial levels. Environmental impact assessment is also regulated by governments at a variety of levels. The issue is best addressed through the coordination of a national strategy.

73) We call upon the federal government to work with the churches and Aboriginal community leaders to inform the families of children who died at residential schools of the child’s burial location, and to respond to families’ wishes for appropriate commemoration ceremonies and markers, and reburial in home communities where requested.

As infrastructure and resource development accelerates throughout Canada, the risk of damage to relatively undocumented residential school cemeteries increases. Depending upon the jurisdiction, an environmental impact assessment, which includes assessment of heritage sites, is usually required prior to development. This generally involves a review of existing documentation, evaluation of the potential for heritage sites within the development zone, and also often a physical search. Such work is often done in phases, with preliminary review of centralized archives and databases to inform subsequent investigation. Local knowledge about residential school cemeteries might not be readily accessible to non-local planners, resource managers, and impact assessors. It is therefore important that locally collected information is shared with agencies responsible for land use planning, environmental impact assessment, and cemeteries protection and regulation.

Such information-sharing is hindered by limited documentation, unclear jurisdictional responsibility, and uncoordinated consolidation of information. These problems could be addressed through the establishment of a registry of residential school cemeteries that could be available online. At a minimum, such a registry should include the identification, duration, and affiliation of each cemetery; its legal description; current land ownership and condition; and its location coordinates.

There is also a need for information sharing with the families of those who died at the schools. As the historical record indicates, families were not adequately informed of the health condition of their children. There is a need for the federal government to ensure that appropriate measures are undertaken to inform families of the fate of their children and to ensure that the children are commemorated in a way that is acceptable to the families.

74) We call upon the federal government to work with churches, Aboriginal communities, and former residential school students to establish and maintain an online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children.

75) We call upon the federal government to work with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, churches, Aboriginal communities, former residential school students, and current landowners to develop and implement strategies and procedures for the ongoing identification, documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children were buried. This is to include the provision of appropriate memorial ceremonies and commemorative markers to honour the deceased children.

The complex and sensitive work of documenting, maintaining, commemorating, and protecting residential school cemeteries must be undertaken according to a set of guiding principles that give priority to community requirements and knowledge. Any physical investigation of the cemeteries must involve close consultation with interested communities, identification of community-driven objectives, suitable methodologies, and attention to spiritual and emotional sensitivities.

The generally sparse written documentation must be combined with locally held knowledge. Often, this information will be unwritten, and held by Survivors, the family of Survivors, staff, or local residents. This locally held information can be used to verify, correct, and amplify archival information. This work might involve local initiatives to physically document cemetery extent and location, and also to identify individual graves within or around the cemetery area. When undertaking physical inspection and documentation of the cemeteries, the most cost-effective strategy involves collection and consolidation of both documentary and locally held knowledge prior to initiating fieldwork. This will improve efficiency of the physical search and aid selection of the most effective field methodologies. It also enables researchers to determine community wishes regarding the most appropriate approaches to site investigation. This includes identifying the protocols regarding prayers and ceremonial observance prior to a site visit.

Long-abandoned cemeteries may yield only fragmentary surface evidence of their existence, such as decaying grave markers, picket fences, offerings, or grave houses. Sometimes, shallow depressions might be the only remaining indication of graves, and the cemetery might be overgrown with grass, weeds, or woody vegetation. Care must be taken to avoid inadvertent destruction of surface evidence when seeking to document, beautify, or commemorate the cemetery area. Obscuring surface vegetation should not be immediately cleared, since it might also disturb fragile remnants of grave markers, and different vegetation growth might suggest grave locations. Site documentation might require archaeological expertise to undertake preliminary mapping and photo-documentation, air-photo interpretation coupled with topographic mapping, near-surface geophysical survey, and test excavation.³⁸

76) We call upon the parties engaged in the work of documenting, maintaining, commemorating, and protecting residential school cemeteries to adopt strategies in accordance with the following principles:

i. The Aboriginal community most affected shall lead the development of such strategies.

ii. Information shall be sought from residential school Survivors and other Knowledge Keepers in the development of such strategies.

iii. Aboriginal protocols shall be respected before any potentially invasive technical inspection and investigation of a cemetery site.

The Working Group on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials posed four questions:

The Commission focused its resources on answering the first three of these questions.

The Commission has established a National Residential School Student Death Register. On that register, it has identified the names of 2,040 students who died in residential school or shortly after discharge. It has also identified 1,161 reported deaths of unnamed residential school students. As noted, work on the register is far from complete: there are many documents that must be reviewed and further cross-referenced. In addition, statements given by former students to the Commission have yet to be fully analyzed for references to student deaths and further cross-referencing with the documentary evidence.

Tuberculosis was the cause of death in 48.7% of the cases for which there is a reported cause of death (on the Named and Unnamed registers combined.) A child’s vulnerability to tuberculosis and ability to recover from the infection was in large measure governed by diet, sanitary conditions, ventilation, quality of clothing, and physical strength. Due to limited government funding, students in most schools were malnourished, quartered in crowded and unsanitary facilities, poorly clothed, and overworked. The fact that the government was not able to impose and maintain a screening mechanism that kept infected students out of the schools meant that the schools amplified an existing tuberculosis crisis in the Aboriginal community.

Students who died at school were rarely sent home unless their parents could afford to pay for transportation. Unless they lived in close proximity to the school, most parents could not afford such costs. As a result, it is likely that most students who died at residential school were buried in either a nearby mission cemetery or a residential school cemetery. Although some of these cemeteries remain in operation, many more have been abandoned after the closure of either the school or the mission. In recent years, in a number of important instances, Aboriginal communities, churches, and former staff have taken steps to rehabilitate cemeteries and commemorate the individuals buried there.

The measures recommended in this report are intended to serve as a framework for a national strategy for the documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries. Such a program, carried out in close consultation with the concerned Aboriginal communities, is necessary to properly honour the memory of the children who died in Canada’s residential schools.