On a bright summer day in August, Rebecca Blake found herself in a cemetery outside Edmonton searching for the graves of Inuvialuit who had died in the South during a tuberculosis epidemic.
In a corner of a cemetery in St. Albert, Alta., she found under some trees a section dedicated to indigenous peoples and a monument with the names of 98 people buried there from northern Canada.
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Naming the unknown: How First Nations identify the children buried in unmarked graves
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Naming the unknown: How First Nations identify the children buried in unmarked graves
As Blake looked around the area, she discovered a grim reality.
“I realized there was not enough room for 98 people. Then I learned they are one on the other, on the other,” she said.
At another cemetery, Blake learned that a woman taken from her community to attend a tuberculosis hospital was buried in the same grave as a local social service recipient.
Blake, who is Inuvialuit and an ordained deacon, was part of a group that included family members and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation that traveled to the Edmonton area last summer to hold ceremonies at the burial sites of 12 individuals killed by the Nanilavut detected and identified. Project.
The project, which translates to “let’s find them” in Inuktut, began to seek out and honor the lives of those who died in TB hospitals.
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Blake helped lead the funeral ceremonies. She shared her experience this week at the second National Gathering on Unmarked Burials hosted by the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials and the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation.
“The feeling of reunification was indescribable. Everything I saw over those few days will stay with me for the rest of my life and changed me,” Blake told a crowd of residential school survivors, health experts and family members.
The event, which concluded on Wednesday, focused on promoting community well-being and addressing trauma in the search and recovery of missing children.
Kimberly Murray, who the federal government named as the special interlocutor in June, identified common concerns when addressing trauma.
Murray said communities are in dire need of resources to implement wellness programs. She said that indigenous elders and healers need to be recognized as mental health practitioners and that changes to federal funding agreements are needed.
The federal government plans to spend $320 million to help indigenous communities heal from the ongoing effects of residential schools through projects including searching former school sites, holding ceremonies or commemorative sites.
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Murray said communities were told that this funding could not be used for legal aid.
“When I think about the history of the Indian Act and how Native people were not allowed to hire lawyers, it’s almost as if they took that provision of the Indian Act and breathed life into it in their terms and conditions of their funding agreements. “
Some communities have expressed difficulty accessing land and negotiating with private landowners, forcing them to seek legal help, Murray said.
Sioux Valley Dakota Nation in western Manitoba was recently denied access to search for unmarked graves on part of the site of the former Brandon Residential School. The area is now a private campground.
Earlier this month, Murray submitted a progress report to the federal government that outlined other common concerns she heard.
This includes the obstacles survivors and communities face when requesting access to records. In one case, a survivor was told it would take six months for them to gain access, Murray said.
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She also found that there are questions about whether law reform and other measures are needed to support inquests and, where appropriate, criminal prosecutions.
Murray called on governments to immediately waive their fees for communities to access death, birth or any other certificates held by the statistics offices.
“We heard at this gathering that there are family members buried in cemeteries in marked graves, but they don’t know where they are,” she said. “Those death records can tell them where they’re buried, communities need to have access to that.”
When families lose a child without any answers about what happened or where they are buried, it leads to a different kind of unresolved grief, former senator and judge Murray Sinclair said during his keynote address Monday night.
“Trauma that we all feel as a collective from the effects of children still in the ground and treated so badly is a trauma that runs through our nations in all of us,” Sinclair said.
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Murray said she also heard this week about the importance of community solidarity when it comes to repairs.
“People help each other in healing, and there is power in that.”
© 2022 The Canadian Press
