'Sacred work': Sask. First Nation learning how to conduct its own underground searches

Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.

Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.

A new company “Kā-natonahkik-tāpwēwin,” which in the Cree language translates to “In search of the truth,” is leading the training. The company known as KNT IRS Consulting for short, is an Indigenous owned, on-reserve company.

The company specializes in ground searches associated with unmarked graves and the Indian residential school system (IRS).

They hope to teach other Indigenous communities how to conduct searches with the necessary technologies, while at the same time keeping the objective Indigenous focused.

“At the end of the day that is our goal. To find the truth of the atrocities of the past, and to change the narrative from a negative to a positive across Canada,” said Nadine Obey, the CEO of KNT IRS Consulting.

The group is currently together for two weeks. They are camping together and ingesting a wide range of Information.

There is a large crossover of Indigenous and western ways of knowing, which organizers say must happen for successful searches in the future.