As an archeologist, it’s impossible to ignore evidence of harm at Indian Residential Schools
I am an archeologist. It’s a field that I was initially drawn to because it felt comfortably distant from the things that got people upset. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In recent years, we archeologists have found ourselves drawn into deeply acrimonious debates about Canada’s history with Indigenous Peoples. It makes sense. Our profession puts us into a physical encounter with the past. We collect evidence.
Recent articles in some corners of the media landscape have made much of the fact that the number of suspected graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia has been revised downward. Indeed, some columnists have gone so far as to suggest this proves the Indian Residential School system was not genocidal and that Canada has been libeled.
