Money to find, commemorate unmarked Manitoba burial sites start of 'a long process,' provincial minister says
CBC
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
On the front lawn of a former residential school in Manitoba, survivors stepped up one by one to tell their stories, each in a language the institutions once tried to take from them.
The gathering outside the former Portage la Prairie Residential School, now a national historic site and museum run by Long Plain First Nation, saw the province outline how $2.5 million it pledged last year to help find and commemorate unmarked graves at the sites will be distributed among Indigenous organizations.
But for some, like Eleanor Elk, who was forced to attend residential school from the age of six, the announcement brought mixed emotions.
Discoveries of possible unmarked graves over the past year bolstered support for similar searches of sites across the country, including in Manitoba.
But each discovery also brought back difficult memories for many survivors, Elk said.
"It opened up a lot of hurt," she said, after speaking in Dakota to the crowd of Indigenous leaders, politicians and community members.
"No amount of money, no amount of apologies, 'I'm sorrys', is going to heal anybody."
After a water ceremony in the morning, the afternoon saw political and Indigenous leaders clasp hands in a round dance that included Premier Heather Stefanson and Indigenous Reconciliation and Northern Relations Minister Alan Lagimodiere.
Opposition NDP Leader Wab Kinew was among the drum group that played them on.
A new monument capturing the painful legacy of residential schools was also revealed on the grounds.
One hundred and fifty thousand children attended residential schools, one side reads. Many never returned.
Of Manitoba's 18 former residential school sites, First Nations have signaled their intentions to search or have started searching at 11 of them.
To date, those efforts highlight the number of children who died at the schools is much higher than the 338 originally reported by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Stefanson said.
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