At least 33 Canadian churches have burned to the ground since May 2021. So far, 24 are confirmed arsons

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

In a barren field of sagebrush alongside a road through the Osoyoos Indian Band, Chief Clarence Louie stands atop a concrete pad and surveys the rubble in front of him.

This used to be the front entrance to St. Gregory's, the simple wooden church that hosted countless community celebrations, dinners and religious services, on the reserve just north of the Canada-U.S. border in central B.C.

The church had stood for more than one hundred years as a symbol of the Catholic faith, but on June 21, 2021, someone burned it to the ground. 

Louie recalled being forced to go to the church as a child to learn the word of God. He didn't like it.

"We were heathens, right?" he said from the church steps. "We were savages. We had to come in here and have the white man save our souls. That's what we were taught."

While he doesn't hide his contempt for Catholicism, he's angry that someone torched St. Gregory's, which was the second church that burned that night. Hours earlier, someone also set fire to the Sacred Heart Church on the Penticton Indian Band about 40 kilometres north of Osoyoos.

"I was upset that some rez punks did arson," he told CBC News, pointing the finger directly at local youth from area reserves, including his own. 

"I don't think white people came here and burned this down."

No one has ever been charged in either the Osoyoos or Penticton fires. 

Other communities in Western Canada, including some First Nations, also have been impacted by the fires. CBC News has examined 33 Canadian churches that burned to the ground since May 2021. Just two were ruled accidental. 

Investigators have determined that 24 were deliberately set while others are still under investigation. A researcher and some community leaders suggest Canada's colonial history and recent discoveries of potential burial sites at former residential schools may have lit the fuse. 

In 2021, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation near Kamloops, B.C., released a statement revealing that researchers found 215 anomalies in the ground that suggested unmarked graves. Leaders said they believed they were unmarked graves belonging to Indigenous children forced to attend the school. 

Louie grew up at a time when others from his reserve were taken to the school, which was run by the Catholic Church until 1969. It's estimated more than 150,000 children were sent to the schools in Canada from the 1830s until the last school closed in 1997.