More potential burial sites discovered in residential school in British Columbia

BC First Nations’ lead investigator announced its probe has revealed that at least 28 children died on the grounds of a former residential school and identified 66 more potential burial sites.

Whitney Spearing, along with the Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) investigation team, spent last year gathering documents and surveying approximately 0.18 square kilometres of the grounds of the former St. Joseph’s Mission site.

“It is also clear that many of the children and infant babies born at the mission as a product of child sexual assault were disposed of through incineration on and off-site at the mission.”

Many WLFN members were forced to attend St. Joseph‘s, which opened in 1891. It began as an industrial school and later grew to include Onward Ranch, which was acquired in 1964 to sustain the school.