The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous children directed and funded by the government of Canada through the Department of Indian Affairs. Canada is a settler society which established residential schools aimed at assimilating Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture. The schools were administered by various Christian churches from 1828 to 1997.
Students' bodies were often buried in school cemeteries to keep costs as low as possible. Comparatively few cemeteries associated with residential schools are explicitly referenced in surviving documents, but the age and duration of the schools suggests that most had a cemetery associated with them. Many cemeteries were unregistered, and as such the locations of many burial sites and names of residential school children have been lost. Over 4,000 students died while attending Canadian residential schools.
Remains have been found on some school grounds. In 1974, the cemetery of the Battleford Industrial School was excavated, revealing 72 bodies. Bodies have also been unearthed accidentally during construction (e.g.: 19 at Muscowequan Indian Residential School in 1992) and by flooding (e.g.: 34 at Dunbow Industrial School in 1996). Starting in 2018, many First Nations communities began using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs to search for potential graves. Announcement of 215 anomalies at Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021 made international news and became symbolic of the larger search for children who went missing and died at residential schools. Most communities have not yet followed these searches with excavations due to a lack of community consensus on whether to disturb burials. As of December 2025, only St. Joseph's Residential School in Fort Resolution has found remains based on radar and dog information. Partial excavations at three other schools have not found remains.
Disputes regarding the conclusiveness of the evidence has helped spawn a movement of denialism about the existence of some or all residential school burial sites. Indigenous groups and academics have dismissed claims of a "mass grave hoax", saying that claimed discoveries of mass graves were present in a minority of stories published by mainstream media and that there had been public misinterpretation of what had actually been announced in 2021. Federal Justice Minister David Lametti said in 2023 that he was open to outlawing residential school denialism. His successor, Arif Virani, did not take a position on the issue.
The Government of Canada formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2008. The commission's findings included recognition of past colonial genocide and settlement agreements. In October 2022, the House of Commons of Canada unanimously passed a motion calling on the federal Canadian government to recognize the residential school system as genocide. This acknowledgment was followed by a visit by Pope Francis, who apologized for Church members' roles in the genocide. Beginning in June 2021, there was a series of arsons and other acts of vandalism against Christian churches that law enforcement, politicians, and tribal officials speculated was spurred by anger towards Christians over the schools and gravesites.
Background
The Canadian residential school system, funded by the Canadian government and administered by Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and United religious groups, was created to remove and isolate Indigenous children and assimilate them.
The 1876 Act to Promote the Gradual Assimilation of the Indian Tribes of Canada provided the legal framework for the residential school system.
The last residential school closed in 1997. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found records of 4037 deaths at the schools, and published a list. There were repeated outbreaks of tuberculosis in the early 20th century; "given their cramped conditions and negligent health practices, residential schools were hotbeds for the spread of TB", a National Post reporter wrote. Bodies were not returned to their families for burial, and families were not normally informed of the circumstances of their child's death. Commission chairman Murray Sinclair estimated in an interview that the true number of deaths could range between 6,000 and 25,000. Some of the students who died at the schools were buried in unmarked graves. Over time, markers at some graveyards were lost or destroyed.
Alberta
Grouard
On March 1, 2022, Kapawe'no First Nation announced the results of a search of 3696.5m2 at the site of St. Bernard's Residential School. Conducted by the Institute for Prairie and Indigenous Archeology at the University of Alberta, it used ground-penetrating radar and multi-spectral imagery captured by drone. It found 169 potential gravesites: 129 probable, 32 thought possible, and 8 likely. The next step for the likely graves would be to exhume. The nation announced plans to search further based on the testimony of residential school survivors, including at a nearby Anglican church and a site where Indian agents and the North-West Mounted Police had structures. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission had found records for the deaths of 10 students. The Catholic Church operated the school from 1894 to 1961.
Saddle Lake
Since 2004, partial remains have been repeatedly discovered while digging new graves in the Saddle Lake Cree Nation community cemetery, located near the former site of the Blue Quills Indian Residential School.
At the time, the remains were re-interred upon discovery, but investigators searching for unmarked graves on their territory announced on May 17, 2022, that they believed the accidentally excavated remains were the remains of children who died at residential school. The investigators believe that the discoveries include a mass grave, where they found "numerous children-sized skeletons wrapped in white cloth," and theorized that there could have been from a typhoid outbreak at the school. To prevent further accidental excavations, the nation has requested funding to acquire ground-penetrating radar equipment and carry out a non-invasive survey.
A report released in January 2023 said that the gravesite had been confirmed by ground-penetrating radar. A report in April 2023 announced that an investigation of the site using ground-penetrating radar and drone imagery found 19 anomalies which might be gravesites. The nation intended to use the findings as a starting point for further investigation. In October 2023, the remains of a child were found at the site.
St. Bruno's
In June 2022, the Institute for Prairie Indigenous Archaeology (PIA) led a preliminary ground-penetrating radar search of the former site of St. Bruno's Indian Residential School, which covered the cemetery, the root cellars, and some areas of the schoolyard, 1.8 acres in total. Based on that search, a report released by a group of Treaty 8 chiefs and the University of Alberta in June 2023 announced the identification of 88 "potential unmarked graves", of which 14 were listed as "likely", meaning that they had multiple indicators of being graves.
St. Joseph's Industrial School (Dunbow Industrial School)
In 1996, a flood eroded the banks of the Highwood River, exposing the caskets and remains of some of the 72 children known to have died while attending Dunbow Industrial School, also referred to as St. Joseph's. In May 2001, the remains of 34 children were identified and re-interred at a site further from the river following First Nations, Métis, and Christian traditions. Since then, local resident Laurie Sommerville has obtained school records from the Missionary Oblates, and worked on identifying the deceased children; she had identified 27 as of May 2013.
During the school's 38 years of operation, from 1884 to 1922, one in six of the 430 total students died. Most were Siksika, or TsuuT'ina (then known as Blackfoot and Sarcee).
British Columbia
Ahousaht
Ahousaht First Nation in Ahousat planned excavations in advance of a planned real estate project. Ahousaht Indian Residential School, on Flores Island near Maaqtusiis, was run by Presbyterians. The Catholic-run Christie Indian Residential School operated on Meares Island from 1900 to 1983 and was the last residential school to close in Canada.
Alert Bay
St. Michael's Indian Residential School, in Alert Bay – led by 'Namgis First Nation; the search was in "early stages" as of July 2021, and a press release in February 2022 officially announced the start of the inquiry, detailing plans for community engagement, a project manager, and a monument following the investigation.
Alberni
On February 21, 2023, Tseshaht First Nation released "phase one" findings, the results of a ground-penetrating radar survey of just over 10% of the area identified at Alberni Indian Residential School for investigation, as well as historical research that included interviewing survivors of the school, which was run first by Presbyterians, then the United Church, and eventually the Canadian government. The findings reported 17 suspected Interviews with survivors identified 67 students who died at AIRS.
Malnutrition was rampant at almost all residential schools, but at Alberni, milk and dental care were deliberately withheld for two years from some children by researchers studying the effects of malnutrition. Records reviewed by the TRC included 29 children who`lans to contact family members of those dead students that can be identified, and eventually hold a ceremony to tear the old school building down.
Tseshaht First Nation announced plans to search near the Alberni Indian Residential School (AIRS) building in August 2021, . Funding was secured by December 2021 of over CA$1 million and an initial GPR scan was scheduled in the spring of 2022. The search began in earnest in July 2022.
Kamloops
In 2021, Sarah Beaulieu, an anthropologist experienced at searching for historical gravesites, surveyed the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School on the lands of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation with ground-penetrating radar and observed "disruptions in the ground" which she concluded could be 200 unmarked graves, based on "their placement, size, depth, and other features" though "only forensic investigation with excavation" would confirm if these were actually human remains. As of May 2022, the nation had assembled a team of technical archaeologists and professors as they continue their investigation of the site, which Chief Rosanne Casimir described as an ongoing process from "exhumation to memorialization." The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc band announced on the third anniversary of their initial announcement of the graves' discovery that their investigation was proceeding but would remain confidential to preserve its integrity. Denialists have gone to the burial site with shovels to "prove" that there are no human remains at the site.
As of September 2024, no human remains have been excavated or confirmed at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site. Researchers and commentators have raised questions about the evidence supporting claims of mass graves, noting that the anomalies detected in 2021 remain unverified and that historical records and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s investigations did not previously identify the site as a burial ground.
Kootenay
On June 30, 2021, the leadership of ʔaq̓am, a band of the Ktunaxa Nation, announced that 182 unmarked grave sites had been identified in a cemetery next to the site of the former St. Eugene's Mission Residential School. Over 5,000 children attended the school between 1912 and 1970. The building now operates as a casino and golf resort.
Maintenance workers came upon an "unknown and unmarked grave" in 2020. Scans with ground-penetrating radar identified additional anomalies. Graves were traditionally marked with wooden crosses.
The graveyard dates to 1865, before the school was built, and has been used continuously for burials by the local settler and indigenous community, including St. Eugene Hospital, which operated from 1874 to 1899. The residential school was in operation from 1912 to 1970. The band said it was "extremely difficult to establish whether or not these unmarked graves contain the remains of children who attended the St. Eugene Residential School".
Kuper Island
In 2018 the Penelakut chief, council and elders met with researchers from the University of British Columbia to discuss a possible survey of the grounds of the former Kuper Island Indian Residential school for unmarked graves using GPR. This work would build on previous GPR surveys conducted in known cemeteries in the community in 2014 and 2016.
In a memo sent to band members on July 8, 2021, Chief Joan Brown of the Penelakut First Nation made reference to the discovery of at least 160 "undocumented and unmarked" graves located on the grounds of the former school, on an island off Vancouver Island. The memo was circulated in national media coverage on July 12. It is unclear whether the number referred to new findings.
The school, referred to as "Canada's Alcatraz", was operated on Penelakut Island (formerly Kuper Island) from 1889 to 1969 by the Catholic Church, and from 1969 to 1975 by the federal government.
St. Augustine's
On April 20, 2023, Shíshálh Nation announced the discovery of 40 unmarked children's graves near the site of the former St. Augustine's Indian Residential School in Sechelt, BC, "shallow graves, only large enough for the young bodies to lay in the fetal position." The investigation made use of ground-penetrating radar and historical research, including interviews with survivors.
“These children were our aunties, they were our uncles, they were our future leaders that we never met,” the chief said in a statement. “They never grew up and decades later, they are still lost children.”
Squamish
St. Paul's Indian Residential School (Squamish), in North Vancouver – Joint investigation to uncover documents associated with the former residential school, as well as identify the burial sites of children that died while attending the school led by the Squamish Nation, Musqueam Nation and Tsleil-Waututh Nation, in collaboration with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, announced August 10, 2021.
Stó:lō Nation
In September 2023, Stó:lō Nation announced that at least 158 of their children had died at three residential schools and a hospital; 37 children died at or due to their attendance at Coqualeetza Industrial Institute/Residential School in Chilliwack, 20 at St. Mary's, five at All Hallow School in Yale and 96 children between ages five and 20 at the Coqualeetza Indian Hospital.