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Unmarked graves are not unusual. The chief pointed out that they may have been marked at one time, they may contain remains of town people. That's coming from the CHIEF.
There are unmarked graves all around me too. Villages that didn't make it, people moved on leaving behind cemeteries. Eventually nature crumbling markers to the point where they were set aside, unreadable in some cases, and eventually forgotten and farmed over.
What's terrible is that the government or the church didn't want to pay the cost of shipping bodies home in many cases. And if records were transferred to somewhere else by either the church or the government, they should be located.
Residential schools were terrible. But there seems to sometimes be a misunderstanding of the difference between an unmarked grave and a mass grave, which implies out and out murder.
I'm waiting for more information. We've seen the gut emotional reaction, which is to assume that children were systematically murdered up until 1990, and their deaths hidden by mass graves. Then we see the vandalism of burning several Catholic Churches to the ground.
Graves originally marked with wooden markers at any time will be unmarked today. Are the bodies of children, or are these graveyards with people of all ages? Apparently people knew exactly where they were, because as soon as one was announced, several were announced. Why weren't the graveyards properly tended? I don't expect a church to tend the graves of my ancestors. Since the families knew where the graves were, why didn't they look after them?
If bodies were shipped to families, what would the families have done with them? Suppose it's 1880 and mid-Winter. Do you think the families wanted bodies, or did they prefer that they were buried where they died?
I would like to know the full story, not just the emotional story that is used for demands for money and to justify burning churches.
The problem goes way past the Catholic Church and politicians.
I moved to Canada in 1973 to attend graduate school at the University of British Columbia.
I was puzzled that for a "frontier" country there were few to none First Nation peoples or even evidence of them. So I asked the forestry professors about it, since at that time in the states we were starting to address those issues.
I got a lot of "happy" talk.
How grateful the First Nation peoples were to be in Canada instead of the US. How well, they were assimilating into Canadian society. How well treated they were by the Canadian government that they didn't NEED to leave the "homelands" and preferred living there.
It reminded me of the defence of slavery in the US a hundred years earlier. Almost the exact same words were being used.
These people traveled among the First Nation peoples. I cannot believe how blind they were to native conditions.
I remember thinking...yeah, right. Living in poverty, under wretched living conditions that would make anybody happy!!!
No country is perfect. It is way past time for Canada to make amends with its First Nation peoples.
When I was at UBC in 1978, there were Totem Poles. It looks like this one was installed in 1977. The installation began in 1976. It is at the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus. I visited the site and attended receptions at the museum. As a graduate student, you should have been invited to special events at the museum - where you cannot miss the totem poles.
Nobody was blind. In fact, Indigenous culture was celebrated on the West Coast in the 1970s.
When I was at UBC in 1978, there were Totem Poles. It looks like this one was installed in 1977. The installation began in 1976. It is at the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus. I visited the site and attended receptions at the museum. As a graduate student, you should have been invited to special events at the museum - where you cannot miss the totem poles.
Nobody was blind. In fact, Indigenous culture was celebrated on the West Coast in the 1970s.
I was there the winter of 73/74. I vaguely remember some Totem Poles on campus, but obviously they were not the ones you mentioned.
First Nations culture might have been celebrated, but the First Nations people were ignored. They were definitely missing on campus.
That was my point.
If you vaguely remember some Totem Poles on the UBC Campus in 1976, then they are the ones I mentioned. Those totem poles were at UBC from at least 1978. I was there.
You arrived in Canada in 1973 as a graduate student, referencing USA race related lynchings in the context of Indigenous peoples of Canada. Canada has always celebrated Indigenous Peoples. It is only in the last 20 or so years that the shift has been to burn churches.
I have Indigenous artifacts that I treasured throughout my life, including beadwork, pelts and art.
I think it's faulty to view Canada through the lens of USA slavery.
If you vaguely remember some Totem Poles on the UBC Campus in 1976, then they are the ones I mentioned. Those totem poles were at UBC from at least 1978. I was there.
You arrived in Canada in 1973 as a graduate student, referencing USA race related lynchings in the context of Indigenous peoples of Canada. Canada has always celebrated Indigenous Peoples. It is only in the last 20 or so years that the shift has been to burn churches.
I have Indigenous artifacts that I treasured throughout my life, including beadwork, pelts and art.
I think it's faulty to view Canada through the lens of USA slavery.
Did you ever have a chance to study or read books about the experiences of indigenous peoples in Canada?
I was there the winter of 73/74. I vaguely remember some Totem Poles on campus, but obviously they were not the ones you mentioned.
First Nations culture might have been celebrated, but the First Nations people were ignored. They were definitely missing on campus.
That was my point.
The only reason they were missing on the campus you were at is because you were at UBC and First Nations post-secondary students in British Columbia don't go to UBC or SFU. They can go there if they want to but they don't. First Nations people in BC go to dedicated First Nations focused technical institutes, colleges and universities that host Aboriginal Service Plans where their courses are paid for by the British Columbia First Nations Government. (Did you know they have their own government in BC?) If you wanted to see First Nations people on campus you could have paid a visit to one or two of the colleges or universities that they go to in Vancouver and other locations throughout the province. Here are just a few examples but there are others:
NEC Vancouver - Native Education College.
Douglas College.
Langara College.
Vancouver Community College.
Camosun College.
Capilano University.
Coast Mountain College.
College of New Caledonia.
Nicola Valley Institute of Technology.
BC Institute of Technology.
North Island College.
Thompson Rivers University.
University of Northern British Columbia.
Did you ever have a chance to study or read books about the experiences of indigenous peoples in Canada?
I did, starting at age 4 with an Indigenous babysitter while my parents were on honeymoon. At age 9, that same babysitter taught me Indigenous beading. We started with larger beads, the size of a straw, to learn the weave. Then we moved to small beads. I attended a high school where Indigenous students attended. I became friends with some of the students from the reserve.
I studied the Canadian Social Studies curriculum, which was filled with stories of the Hudson Bay fur/gun/alcohol trade and Iroquois scalpings. Very interesting, bit like the Bible - bit of good, bit of bad. I travelled in France with high school and was housed with an Indigenous student with the French Family for two weeks.
Is there something that you think I'm missing from my education? Guilt, perhaps? I don't have that. I'm Canadian and old enough to know better.
What's the goal - that Canadians wander around with Indigenous Angst, similar to German Angst, all about oppression guilt? I don't think so.
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