CANADA
Times Colonist
Following a coroner’s inquiry into the deaths of four truant children, frozen to death on Fraser Lake on New Year’s Day 1937, the headlines in most B.C. newspapers reported no blame for the tragedy should be attached to the priests who ran the Lelac Indian School, about 80 kilometres west of Prince George.
“Indian School Authorities Absolved in Lake Tragedy,” read one. “No blame in boys’ death,” echoed another. And the Catholic priest who ran Lelac suggested it was really the failure of parents to discipline their children that led to the deaths of eight-year-olds Maurice Justice and Allan Willie, and nine-year-olds Johnny Michael and Andrew Paul.
Careful reading of the coroner’s report tells a different story.
School principal Father Patrick MacGrath, testifying at the inquiry convened Jan. 4, 1937, by local coroner C. Pitts, MD, set the scene for casual indifference of staff toward students on the day the drama began. Mark his protestations of innocence carefully: “I had been away all day on Jan. 1, returning at 5 p.m., but it was not until 9 p.m that I first heard that four boys were missing.” Four boys aged eight and nine missing late on a winter afternoon with temperatures already below zero and falling fast, and no one thought to inform the principal for four hours? He added the runaways were “first reported to Bishop Caudert” but didn’t clarify whether the bishop had been alerted earlier or whether he, on hearing the news, had immediately passed the word along.
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