Chief lauds show of respect for residential school graves

Granting heritage status to cemetery part of national reconciliation process

The chief of the group representing Saskatchewan First Nations says designating a residential school cemetery as a provincial heritage property is a sign of recognition and respect.

Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations says that people went through a horrific time at the Regina Indian Industrial School.

Saskatchewan Culture Minister Ken Cheveldayoff will formally designate the school cemetery today as a provincial heritage property.

The cemetery, located along a dusty gravel road on the edge of Regina, is a small plot of land surrounded by a rail fence with peeling white paint, weathered teddy bears, flowers and a couple of dream catchers.

There’s just one headstone in the cemetery for the children of the first principal of the school, but it’s believed dozens of Indigenous children are buried there.

Chief Ira McArthur of the Pheasant Rump First Nation says granting the site provincial heritage status is part of the reconciliation process.

“I think that’s one of the big things with that particular school was that it wasn’t well known. There was a limited number of students that attended there, and somehow over the years, people just forgot about it, or weren’t even aware of it at all,” McArthur said Tuesday in Regina.

“Some of the families that attended there, they didn’t leave there.”

The Regina Indian Industrial School operated between 1891 and 1910. An unknown number of students died there.

Regina city council voted unanimously last September to grant the site municipal heritage status.

Civic administrators suggested the move after a 2014 land survey discovered there were potentially from 22 to 40 unmarked graves of children in the cemetery.

Janine Windolph, president of the Regina Indian Industrial School Commemorative Association, said in an interview with The Canadian Press last fall that an archeologist for the association identified 36 anomalies.

But, she said, there could be many more children interred there because it was common practice at the time to bury several together.

Windolph pushed for the provincial heritage designation. She said the past needs to be acknowledged before we can start the healing journey.

There was a limited number of students that attended there, and somehow over the years, people just forgot about it, or weren’t even aware of it at all.