Sask. First Nation says it's found 93 potential unmarked child, infant graves

A cemetery located near the former site of the Beauval Indian Residential School. (English River First Nation)

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Possible unmarked child graves found

'These unknown children need  some peace and rest'

• Josh Lynn Digital News Supervisor CTV News Saskatoon
  
   Aug. 29, 2023

A Saskatchewan First Nation now says it has found 79 suspected child grave sites and 14 potential infant grave sites.

"This is not a final number. It breaks my heart that they are likely more," English River First Nation chief Jenny Wolverine said during a news conference in Saskatoon on Tuesday.

English River started searching the site of the former Beauval Indian Residential School in August 2021, using ground penetrating radar.

"We were not sure what to expect and what we would find. But we did know the stories that were shared over generations about the treatment of the students and those students who never returned home," Wolverine said.

The revised total comes after English River First Nation disclosed the discovery of 83 suspected unmarked graves earlier this month.

The First Nation asked for privacy following its initial revelation and had said more details would be revealed during Tuesday's news conference.

Speaking in Saskatoon on Tuesday, Wolverine said disclosing the findings marked the start of a "long and difficult journey."

"As a community and a nation we came together and put our elders and survivors first," Wolverine said.

"We did ceremony to help them come to terms, to heal their spirit."

The English River chief called upon the federal and provincial governments to provide resources for the First Nation's search effort.

"It doesn't all come down to dollars and cents," Wolverine said, visibly choking up for a few moments.

"We have heard 'I am sorry.' Now we need to see action, and that means continuing to bring home the children we lost at the hands of residential schools."

Beauval Indian Residential School was first founded in 1860 and operated for more than 100 years, according to the University of Regina. It was operated by a Roman Catholic mission until 1969.

In 2013, a former dormitory supervisor at the school was convicted of indecent assault and gross indecency for assaults on young boys between 1959 and 1967.

This is a developing story. More details to come.

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Smudging helped David Fineday deal with trauma from #60sScoop

 'Smudge On': Saskatoon man working to fill Indigenous cultural, spiritual gap in city

Dayne Patterson · CBC News · October 2022

David Fineday, middle, in a small circle of people who stopped by Friday for Smudge On, a program that allows people to engage in the Indigenous cultural and spiritual practice of smudging. (Dayne Patterson/CBC)

A Saskatoon man is trying to bring the Indigenous spiritual and cultural practice of smudging to those in the city, where he says it is lacking.

David Fineday, 66, said he was taken from his home at about five years old, then didn't see his mother until he returned home more than a decade later at 16. 

He said his mother and elders then taught him how to smudge. Smudging is a spiritual practice meant to purify oneself by washing the smoke from burning certain herbs, like sweetgrass and sage, over your face and body.

Fineday said he doesn't see smudging often in the city — so he treks from his home in Saskatoon to a small, treed area near the corner of 20th Street West and Avenue K South, and does it there.

Fineday leads "Smudge On," a program backed by the Pleasant Hill Community Association that invites people to smudge every Saturday. Last week he also held a smudge on Friday for those who wanted to participate on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

"Smudge On is a spiritual thing that I am trying to bring back to our people," he said. 

"When you say your prayers that smoke takes your prayers up and that's how you're heard."

David Fineday, left, and Dennis Kissling, right, carried a banner on July 1 with names of people they said were taken from their homes during the Sixties Scoop. On the back it said 'Smudge-On,' a reference to the practice of smudging, which Fineday said has been a way to heal from the traumatic past. (Dayne Patterson/CBC)

Smudge On started in June 2020, but has become more consistent through 2021 and 2022, operating almost every Saturday through the late winter months into the late fall, Fineday said.

"People can come here if they're having problems, they can have a smudge and have a prayer and if they want to talk, they can talk," he said, calling it a no-judgment zone.

"Everybody deserves a prayer, especially these people on the street with their mental illnesses and addictions. They're chased out of every other place."

Fineday said smudging helped him to know he wasn't alone and to heal from the trauma associated with being taken during the Sixties Scoop, a period from the 1960s to 1980s when Canadian child welfare authorities took thousands of Indigenous children from their homes and placed them with non-Indigenous foster parents.

David Fineday, right, hosts the Smudge On program almost every Saturday to provide those in search of the traditional Indigenous practice an opportunity to do it. (Dayne Patterson/CBC)

While Fineday didn't attend residential schools, he said he moved from foster home to foster home from November 1961 until June 1973.

Saskatoon Ward 2 Coun. Hilary Gough stopped by Smudge On's Friday ceremony with a case of coffee and Timbits for the attendees, who sat on blue tarps that circled a metal firepit in the grassed area. 

She said she stops by occasionally.

"This is something that is happening today, for [National Day for Truth and Reconciliation], but it's also something that happens every week," Gough said. 

"It is intended to meet people where they're at."

Gough said she thinks much of the work done on the national day needs to be done year-round, not just on a designated date.