Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association members seeks to identify graves at residential school
Group seeks to ID graves at Shingwauk; Site 'reasonably well-documented,' but more work needed - Residential school alumni concerns rise as AUC grows
Posted By Michael Purvis, March 10
A book of names in the Shingwauk chapel holds only a partial record of the children buried nearby, but it is one of the better-documented residential school cemeteries, says a professor at the university that now occupies the site.
Members of an aboriginal rights group are demanding that churches and government hand over records of the burial sites of thousands of native children who died or went missing from the country's notorious residential schools, beginning in the 1940s.
Somewhere between 100 and 150 children and staff are believed to have been buried at the Shingwauk Residential School site, beginning shortly after the school opened in 1874, said Don Jackson, a professor of Anishinaabemowin and aboriginal studies at Algoma University College.
"This site is reasonably well-documented, but there is more work to be done in terms of knowing exactly how many people are really there and who they are," said Jackson. "How carefully the records were kept is an issue we can't be certain about."
Jackson, director of the Shingwauk Project and Residential School Research, Archive and Visitors' Centre, said family members have confirmed that children other than those named in the records are buried at the site.
The cemetery holds special significance to those who attended the school, said Mike Cachagee, a member of the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association council.
"When you look back at the children that are buried back there, our blood, our sweat and our tears are entrenched in the land," said Cachagee. "We plowed that land, we grazed cattle there, kids lived there from their childhood to their young adult life."
The cemetery is located north and east of what is now Algoma University College's Shingwauk Hall. Jackson said well-used paths lead to the site.
Burials at the school would not have been unusual during its early period, when it operated largely independently of the diminutive neighbouring town of Sault Ste. Marie, said Jackson.
He said the grave site at Shingwauk would also have served Wawanosh, the girls-only residential school that existed at what is now the intersection of Wawanosh Avenue and Great Northern Road. That school operated for roughly 20 years ending in 1896.
Cachagee said he can't recall any of his classmates being buried at the school when he attended, though he said former school staff were sometimes interred there.
He said there is concern among Shingwauk alumni about the future of the cemetery and other aspects of the historical site in light of preparations underway for AUC to be granted a full university charter, and the advent of Shingwauk University.
"What happens to cemeteries in situations like this, when they begin carving up the land on these sites, particularly if they're under a trust?" said Cachagee.
He said the alumni council plans to discuss its position on the future of the Shingwauk Education Trust next month.