The Kamloops residential school is a black eye on the face of Canada. I'm going to be blunt about this one: This school was used as a tool of genocide to 'civilize the Indian.'
What I mean by that, is children were forcibly removed from their homes, taken from their families, and bussed to this school for cultural 'training'. From the 1920s until the 1970s, children 4-15 years old were taken from their homes and prohibited from seeing their families, speaking their native language, and practicing their culture and religion.
For 87 years in this school, these children, kidnapped by the state, experienced physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Their hair was cut, siblings were separated, they were given little to no medical care, they suffered through harsh Canadian winters without their traditional native garb to keep warm, and many died from severe trauma, abuse, neglect, or even perished while trying to escape.
This place is powerful in a very negative way. During this time, the people of the city of Kamloops a few miles down and across the South Thompson River looked the other way. The red bricks of the school, propped up on a hill, stick out of the dusty badlands backdrop like a bloody looming scar.
The Kamloops residential school isn't the only one. Across Canada, and yes, even in my home state of Minnesota, residential 'cultural immersion' schools or boarding schools took in thousands of Native American children and abused them. At one point Kamloops was the largest school of this type in Canada.
The children were told they were evil. That they possessed demonic properties. They were ridiculed and told they were monsters. Children with no parents to comfort them, nor peers or siblings to confide in. In "pray the gay away" institutions in the states, this kind abuse leads to suicides.
This isn't to say the reservations in those days didn't have their own issues, nor to say that conditions on them was preferable. We're focusing on the state.
That's bad enough, but it gets worse.
The school closed in 1977. Fast forward a few generations to May, 2021. Ground penetrating radar had been used on the school grounds, yielding disturbing results. 215 'anomalies' had been discovered on the grounds, meaning the soil had been disturbed. It appears a large, unmarked grave had been discovered. Survivors of the schools began to speak out, the media descended down on the town of Kamloops and news broke at the turn of the month in June 2021.
"The confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School..." started Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc community, but it had already been said.
That's when the headlines broke. BBC, CNN, CBC, all the international sections of the globe's major print and televised media outlets broadcasted the news of "215 children" that had been discovered. Here they are known as Le Estcwicwéy̓, or 'the missing'. I've also heard them called "the 215."
Then I spoke with the people here at the residential school on the ground. The school has been shut down since 1977 and is now located on the property of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc 1st Nations community. Guards from the 1st nations band are posted by the burial site 24/7.
I approached and asked if I could film the school, the signs that say "no filming" outside of the burial ground and I made no attempt to even ask to see the site. It is marked as a "Sacred Site" and only certain members of the local indigenous band are allowed access.
The Burial Site is a powder keg ready to explode.
I'll say this outright. Many here in Kamloops, both white and indigenous, are skeptical at the actual number of children. Even the literature at the school says "The presence of 215 anomalies ... was detected." There have been no official excavations and the site is roped off by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and under an official federal criminal investigation. At this point it's not known what all is actually under the ground.
The media ran with the quote the chief gave and reported on "215 children" but that could be far from the actual number. It could've been a mistake to say that. Why does this matter?
The federal government, now represented by the Liberal party, after learning of the mass unmarked grave, has called for reparations. Conservatives and other political opposition have noted that the Liberal party had been in power during the majority of the time these wrongs were committed. The argument isn't whether or not these tragic events had taken place. It's who is responsible and how to make up for it. How much is enough?
It gets even more convoluted the deeper you go.
Records are scarce. Not only of the children and their personal information, but records from the school itself. Rosanne, the Chief of the band, has been going to Rome and Ottawa to find records with the Canadian government and the Catholic Church. The band isn't able to investigate the grounds itself because the RCMP has jurisdiction. Everyone is hitting investigative dead ends and people want answers.
I've heard locals, both white and indigenous, say they remember an orchard on the site of the burials. They open the door to a theory that the 'anomalies' were simply the locations of trees.
Again, the mass grave still hasn't been 'uncovered' so it becomes even more complicated.
-Families and the band have no closure.
-Deniers come into the fray.
-Traffic has been blocked, protests have been held, and 'grands have been standed.' What is it for?
-Why isn't the RCMP continuing the investigation? What is the status of the investigation?
-What does the church and/or government know?
If it turns out that there are only 30, or 60 kids, will folks be pissed about the funds given to assist in this if there aren't as many as stated? People will feel lied to. Manipulated, even.
The people of Kamloops are in the dead center of a controversy. This isn't as cut and dry as it is visiting the site of George Floyd's murder or other sites of grave injustices. This one is still ongoing. The injustices of the past are impacting people into the foreseeable future.
The people of Canada wear orange shirts with the phrase "Every Child Matters". There are flags. There are awareness campaigns and people recognize the injustice. It's the fallout we're dealing with that has people charged.
How bad was it? Is it worth rectifying, and if so, who can rectify it?
I know one thing for sure: I rode my motorcycle on this trip a few hundred kilometers out of my way to see this school and I found a lot more than I was looking for.
JT 8/30/2022