B.C. First Nation says dozens of children died at residential school in Port Alberni

A Vancouver Island First Nation now believes dozens more children died at a residential school in Port Alberni than originally thought.

On Tuesday, the Tseshaht First Nation announced the findings of the first phase of its investigation into deaths and missing children at the former Alberni Indian Residential School.

The ceremony began with traditional singing, drumming and dancing to honour ancestors, children who didn’t make it home after being taken to residential schools, and the survivors who protected Tseshaht culture in the face of horrific abuse.

“Even when they weren't allowed to speak their language or they weren't allowed to sing or dance, they carried it on and that's why we can get up in front of all of you and do what we did here today,” said elected Chief Councillor Wahmeesh.

Between the 1890s and 1960ss, thousands of Indigenous children from 70 different First Nations communities around British Columbia were forced to attend the institution.

Comparing historical records with first-hand survivor accounts, the Tseshaht First Nation said it has confirmed at least 67 children died.

"Different accounts of ‘accidents’. I say that with quotations because the historical record maybe referred to something as an accident but the account that survivors gave was intentional harm by staff,” said Sheri Meding who works with an organization called the Missing Children and Unmarked Graves Project.

The team also used ground penetrating radar, drone photography and other imaging technology to identify 17 potential unmarked graves in the first phase of an investigation which covered just 12 percent of the 100 hectare site.

"This feels like the heaviest time that we’ve had to deal with as Indigenous people in Canada,” said Wahmeesh. “It feels like the weight of the world is on our shoulders knowing that some of our children never made it home.”

Tseshaht dancers carried 67 teddy bears into the announcement – one for every deceased child.

Wahmeesh said they plan to work to identify all of the children and share that information with their families.

“That's our commitment as Tseshaht, to bring those bears and return one to each one of those families that we have that information for,” he said.

With so many different First Nations potentially impacted by the deaths, each with its own protocols, conversations around possible excavation or exhumation of potential grave sites are delicate and it’s unclear if that work will ever happen.

If you are a former residential school student in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419, or the Indian Residential School Survivors Society toll-free line at 1-800-721-0066.

Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.