Details of upcoming work to find graves at residential school site presented in Carcross, Yukon
CBC
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
People in the community of Carcross, Yukon, received more details this week about the upcoming work to search for unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school.
That work, which will be done using ground-penetrating radar and other tools to identify possible grave sites, is set to begin in early June with some results expected by the end of summer.
"What we wanted to do was come in here and make sure they were completely aware of what our plans are," said Adeline Webber, who chairs the Yukon Residential Schools Missing Children working group, on Thursday in Carcross.
The working group, along with the geotechnical firm who's been hired to do the work, met with the chief and council of the Carcoss/Tagish First Nation and other community members, to answer questions and ask for input into how the work is done.
"Cultural protocols are really important," Webber said. "Whatever the cultural protocols are — it's up to them to tell us what it is. We won't take that over, it's up to them," Webber said.
The original Chooutla Indian Residential School was built in Carcross in 1911 and the facility — which had been later rebuilt — was finally shut down in 1969. The building was demolished in 1993 and the site now sits empty.
The Anglican Church ran the school, and students were sent there from across Yukon, the N.W.T. and northern B.C. At least 20 Indigenous children died at Chooutla over the years, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, though the local working group has said the number could be as high as 42.
The group has received funding from both the territorial and federal governments to do the work. It was announced in 2021, a year after the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced it found the potential remains of children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
The federal government has committed $495,000 to the project, with the Yukon government contributing $595,000. The goal is to start with the Chooutla site, and then later look at other former school sites in Whitehorse, Dawson City and at Shingle Point.
Webber said a lot of preliminary work has already been done, including analyzing aerial photographs of the Chooutla site and studying school, church and burial records.
Brian Whiting, an archeological geophysicist with Burnaby, B.C.-based GeoScan, will be leading the work in Carcross next month. He said it will begin with some detailed mapping of the ground surface using a laser.
"It doesn't see through anything but it can see through tiny gaps in the leaves, which may help us figure out, you know, where there are any lumps and bumps or artifacts on the ground that could indicate past burials," he said.
After that, GeoScan workers will use ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and a magnetometer to study the site in more detail. He said the two tools complement each other and reveal different "pieces of the puzzle."
