In 2023, we published Grave Error, a book of essays that candidly discusses the “unmarked-graves” social panic that swept Canada four and a half years ago. In May 2021, it was announced that ground-penetrating radar (GPR) had identified the formerly unknown resting places of 215 Indigenous children who’d attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The announcement sent shock waves through Canadian society, and led to months of self-lacerating commentary about our country’s colonial sins. Journalists and politicians alike acted as though these 215 victims—children who’d presumably been dispatched by murderous Residential School staff—had been identified and unearthed. It was only once this initial period of national hysteria ended that observers noted that, outside of the GPR reports, there existed no proof of graves, bodies, or human remains. And since GPR technology cannot detect bodies, but only soil dislocations that may equally indicate tree roots, drainage ditches, rocks, or other artefacts that have nothing to do with graves, the claim that these GPR-identified soil anomalies corresponded to graves remained unproven.
