Ground search finds 15 'potential' grave sites at former Yukon residential school site

A search done this summer involving ground-penetrating radar at a former residential school site in Carcross, Yukon, found 15 "anomalies" that researchers say are "potential" grave sites.

The group leading the project also says that historical research found more children died at the Chooutla Indian Residential School than was previously estimated.

"Uncovering the truth was never going to be easy," said Judy Gingell, chair of the Yukon Residential School and Missing Children Project, in a statement on Tuesday.

The ground search at the Chooutla site began in June. GeoScan, a B.C.-based company, was hired to do the work and used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and a magnetometer to study the site in detail. 

That work found 15 "anomalies" at the Chooutla site and surrounding area, the researchers announced Tuesday. Those sites are not necessarily grave sites, they said.

"However, the sites met several criteria to be considered 'potential' grave sites and would require further investigation to confirm exactly what was discovered there," reads a news release. 

Researchers with the project also used historical records to identify 33 children who died at Chooutla.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation had earlier said that at least 20 Indigenous children died at Chooutla between 1911 and 1969, while the Yukon group behind the search said the number could be as high as 42. 

The new figure, based on work by historical research firm Know History, "supports community suspicions" that more children died at the school than the TRC had estimated. The research work was largely done at the Yukon Archives, Library and Archives Canada, and the archives of the Anglican church.  

The work by GeoScan saw more than 37,000 square meters of ground surveyed at and around the Chooutla site, using ground-penetrating radar and magnetometers. Interpreting the data was "evidence-based and built on the GeoScan team's extensive prior experience in cemeteries as well as in residential-schools searches," the news release states. 

The 15 "anomalies" identified by GeoScan had "potential grave-like features."

The researchers say 12 of those anomalies were on open, level ground that appear "suitable for placing a grave."

"These were all some distance away from the school complex and would likely have been out of sight of the school at the time it operated," the news release states.

"In addition, these 12 are all in locations that have been mentioned by school survivors and community members as possibly containing graves."