Radar search for unmarked graves at Sturgeon Landing begins

A Saskatchewan First Nation launched a week-long project on Monday, which will see ground-penetrating radar used in a search for unmarked graves.

The Sturgeon Landing search, conducted by the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation with technical support from Saskatchewan Polytechnic, is intended to locate and identify unmarked graves associated with the Sturgeon Landing Residential School.

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The school opened officially in 1927 and was never rebuilt after it was destroyed in a fire in 1952.

According to the Cree Nation, “the school caused deep harm by erasing the language, culture, and family ties of many Indigenous children,” and saw outbreaks of illness prior to the fire that forced it to close.

“Sturgeon Landing holds deep scars for our community,” Justin Halcrow, vice chief of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, explained in a statement.

“Many of our children were taken from their families, culture, and identities here. As we search for unmarked graves, we honour those who never returned and continue our path toward healing. Every child mattered, and we will ensure their stories are remembered, and their spirits honoured.”

The search will take place from Monday through Friday, the Cree Nation noted, and it is likely that additional radar work will be undertaken in 2025 “as the site is large and has complex geological and distributed land conditions.”

“Our team is honoured to be entrusted with this significant work and we hope this project will contribute to reconciliation efforts,” Dr. Susan Blum, associate vice-president of applied research and innovation at Sask Polytech, said in a statement.

“We are privileged to share our technical expertise, equipment and experience to collaborate with community partners on important applied research projects like this. Our team will be using remote sensing technologies to locate unidentified and unmarked grave sites at Sturgeon Landing and provide the findings to PBCN.”

A number of searches with ground-penetrating radar in Canada have uncovered evidence of possible unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools. That list includes the 2021 discovery of 751 possible graves found at the former site of a Catholic cemetery where the Marieval Indian Residential School operated in Saskatchewan. None of the suspected grave sites have yet been excavated.

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 4,100 Indigenous children died while attending residential schools in Canada under the system which operated until 1997.

“We ask our community members to unite in prayer and support as we acknowledge our past and begin to heal for future generations,” Halcrow added.