The Survivors’ Flag hangs to honour Indigenous Peoples who were forced to attend residential schools, on the grounds of the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. On Tuesday, Tseshaht First Nation announced the preliminary results of an 18-month research-and-scanning effort to identify those who died at the Alberni Indian Residential School , which operated from 1900 to 1973.
Wahmeesh, whose English name is Ken Watts, announced the detection of 17 suspected grave sites, and the conclusion that 67 children who attended the school had died. “We gathered survivors and literally asked them, what do we do next?” Wahmeesh said of how he approached the “sacred responsibility” of announcing the search results.
Caldwell Hall is still being used by First Nation officials for office and workshop space, but Wahmeesh said it remains an “open wound” for survivors, many of whom refuse to go there because of the emotional trauma it triggers.“That's my biggest fear. They can afford to build them and run them, they can afford to tear it down and help us build new and reclaim the space.”
Alberni Indian Residential School was one of six residential sites where children were subjected to government-sanctioned nutrition experiments without the consent of their parents, a fact discovered by researcher Ian Mosby in 2013 after searching through records. “This is the value of decolonized methodology. It is a prioritizing and foregrounding of lived experience, and the supplemental use of the historical record to support and fill in the picture.”