‘Reflections of interest’ could mean unmarked graves at Blue Quills
Nineteen “reflections of interest”, disturbed areas of land that could point to unmarked graves, have been discovered so far in the area surrounding Blue Quills, once a residential school outside of St. Paul.
On Wednesday, University nuxełhot’įne thaaɁehots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills (UnBQ) hosted the first of four days of healing and reflection, as the ground penetrating radar search data, gathered last summer, was announced for the first time that morning.
Analysts from the University of Alberta gave a brief explanation of their initial findings, while local Indigenous leaders, UnBQ survivors, and the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, Salma Lakhani, all spoke.
Sherri Chisan, president of UnBQ, said it’s been a long journey to get to this point and it will continue to be a long process.
“We’ve known, and our people have known from the beginning, that one day we would be looking for graves. And they are here,” Chisan told Lakeland Connect.
“It is important to identify where the potential graves exist, but it’s equally as important to help those that carry the grief of this experience of Indian Residential Schools and children not coming home. And so we need to take care of one another.”
It began in 2021 in the wake of news of Kamloops of roughly 200 unmarked graves at one of the largest residential schools in Canada, found through ground penetrating radar.
Kisha Supernant, director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archeology, at the University of Alberta, delivered the news to those assembled about what they found.
In total, her team took the radar through 1.3 acres of land, a “tiny amount of the area that needs to be searched,” she said.
Ground penetrating radar involves taking an antenna and sending an electromagnetic wave into the ground. Similar to sonar, the difference is they send a wave into the ground and as it travels through the ground, it bounces back differently, depending on the soil that is in the ground.
That’s how they interpret potential areas that need further investigation, of which there were 19 identified, that have traits — shapes within reflections — that are consistent with potential unmarked graves.
“The reason we’re not using the term unmarked grave is that we don’t know exactly what unmarked graves look like in this environment, because it’s very environmentally specific,” said Supernant, adding that they would need to compare these areas to where graves are known to be, such as a cemetery.
“We use reflections of interest in order to be cautious because we aren’t entirely sure yet what those reflections might mean. With that being said, they are areas which have traits that we have seen elsewhere. They are areas that definitely need further investigation and if we were to get some comparative information from a cemetery, we might actually change our language with these reflections. But until that point, we are very, very cautious.”
The initial grids that were looked at by researchers were chosen largely with the help of school survivors.
Supernant added that not at all areas where survivors know things happened is suitable with this technology.
The reflections of interest were found west of the healing garden, south of the healing garden, a former sweatlodge area, and the field toward the culture camp.
Survivors tell their story
Amidst the revelations shared on Wednesday morning were personal stories from students’ experience at Blue Quills, horrors they’ve held onto for their whole lives.
“To this day — it’s just like yesterday,” said Bertha Janvier-Moyer, who explained that there was a “dirty man” who worked at the school.
“I can hear those keys go into the door. And I’m thinking to myself, these are little girls. Why are you locking us in? What if there was a fire?…That same man who locked us was hurting my sister. And my sister was protecting us. She would lay in front of the door to protect us….I don’t want to be angry any more.”
Slides of old pictures from Blue Quills were presented behind the speakers.
Frog Lake Cree Nation chief Greg Desjarlais and Beaver Lake Cree Nation chief Gary Lameman shared words that spoke of the passed on trauma that these school experiences have caused for their families.
“My father never spoke about it. But he did tell me was he hard of hearing on one side. What happened was, he had said that he only knew yes and no,” said Lameman.
“The nun was asking him questions and he was answering, yes when he should’ve been saying no, no when he should’ve been saying yes, and the nun would slap him. She hit him over his ear and damaged his eardrum. So he was hard of hearing for most of his life.”
Alsana White also attended Blue Quills.
“There was no kindness, no love, nothing. All I wanted to be was loved. And I never got it. It was always abuse. The pain that you carry, the pain we carry as residential school people,” she said.
A fire that was started outside of the school on Tuesday night will be kept burning until Saturday, the culmination of the four days spent searching to heal at UnBQ.
After decades of federal control, in 1970 the community fought back when attempts to shutter the school were discussed. It then became the initial First Nation controlled school in Canada.
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