Pov: Time to Reveal All Details on Lost, Young Native Lives

By Greg Van Moorsel
The Whig
February 22, 2013

http://www.thewhig.com/2013/02/22/pov-time-to-reveal-all-details-on-lost-young-native-lives

They stand out in any cemetery — not because they’re the biggest or smallest tombstones, although they do range from towering monuments to remarkably modest markers.

No, children’s graves command our attention in cemeteries because we instinctively feel the incongruity of young lives cut short before they have a chance to leave a mark.

We’re reflexively drawn to the abrupt endings and often untold stories behind those lives.

Now, imagine several thousand kids’ graves — some more than 100 years old, some known but not yet found, still others lacking the simple dignity of names attached.

New, unpublished research has, for the first time, put a preliminary figure to the death toll of children while attending Canada’s Native residential school system. Mining through one million records, researchers working for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have concluded at least 3,000 young lives were lost. Disease, malnutrition and accidents killed. So did devastating fires and harrowing ordeals like runaways freezing to death.