With Discovery of Unmarked Graves, Canada’s Indigenous Seek Reckoning
Two gruesome discoveries of what Indigenous groups say are the remains of hundreds of children have strengthened the groups’ resolve to hold the country accountable for a long-hidden brutal history.
A line of children’s clothing along the highway signifies the children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia. Credit...
MUSKOWEKWAN FIRST NATION, Saskatchewan — At age 6, Ken Thomas said he was put in a van, driven two hours from his home and dropped on the steps of the Muskowekwan Indian Residential School. The nuns immediately shaved off his braids, and he soon learned that whenever he spoke his Indigenous language they would wash out his mouth with soap.
During his 10 years there he experienced many more searing horrors. He recalled a friend committing suicide after being stripped naked and locked into a dorm after trying to escape. Mr. Thomas and the other boys found their friend hanging lifeless in the shower.
And like many other students, he says he saw human bones being unearthed by unsuspecting contractors connecting a water line on school grounds. Some students had gone missing and he had heard rumors that they had died and been buried there.
