The exploration of possible unmarked graves at a former residential school site near Edmonton is being stymied by a falling out over a parcel of land that has dragged out for several years. Survivors of the school are looking for a resolution as they seek answers.

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Indigenous elders say a conflict over a parcel of Alberta provincial crown land on the northern edge of Edmonton is delaying the identification of possible unmarked graves near a former residential school.

Survivors of the Edmonton Indian Residential School, which operated for 44 years in what is now Sturgeon County, say that as children, they dug graves themselves, saw open plots around the school, and watched trucks arrive delivering wooden coffins.

The school and federal government documented some of the deaths through the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Now, the 20 hectare piece of land, which is believed to contain unmarked graves, is the subject of a dispute between the Alberta government, the Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centre, and the Nechi Institute – a small private college that trains addictions counsellors.

The land in question, located about 15 kilometres north of Edmonton, has four structures on it that are being used by the Nechi Institute and will need to be removed for the search to begin.

Ground-penetrating radar work done in 2013 found some anomalies in the area by the buildings now occupied by Nechi.

Elders with Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centre, and who have connections to the land, are urging for a quick resolution so archeologists can perform an investigation, including further ground-penetrating radar, on the site.

“Time is of the essence for us, because our survivors are leaving us a little too quickly,” says Siobhan Dreelan, a community engagement officer for Poundmaker’s Lodge.

The Nechi Institute has no plans on leaving until they are given somewhere to move by the provincial government, which has led to a stalemate that has dragged on for more than two years.

Touted as a replacement for the decrepit Red Deer Industrial School building, the federal government opened the Edmonton Indian Residential School in 1924. It was run by the United Church of Canada.

Situated just northeast of St. Albert, the government shunted Indigenous students from across central Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories to the school until it closed in 1968.

The province later assumed land ownership. The school building was destroyed by a suspicious fire in 2000.

In the early 1980s, the provincial government constructed what is now the Poundmaker’s building just west of the old school building site.

Poundmaker’s began operating the residential addictions treatment centre there in 1984.

The Nechi Institute, which had accommodations for up to 28 students to stay on site for in-person training courses, joined them in the building in 1986 but were evicted in March 2020 and told to find a new home.

They moved its operation into two modular offices which they owned have been on site since 1999.

The move was part of the United Conservative Party’s plan to expand the number of residential addictions treatment beds in Alberta.

In November, the provincial government funded an expansion of 35 beds and upgraded five medical detox beds at the Poundmaker, a move made possible by the eviction of Nechi.

Nechi Institute chief executive officer Marilyn Buffalo did not anticipate the eviction. It also happened as the COVID-19 pandemic reached Alberta. Both put substantial financial strain on Nechi, as the institute cancelled in-person classes, Buffalo said.

The organization moved its offices into three temporary buildings just south of the lodge that were previously used for storage. Nechi has now moved all of its classes online, or, trainers travel to sites across the country to deliver lessons, she said.

But Buffalo says the onus is on the provincial government to find the organization a new, appropriate space to work after displacing the organization.

“Here we are entering an era of truth and reconciliation all over the world, and we have been put out,” Buffalo said in an April interview. “We’re homeless. I feel like a battered wife running in the night with her children.”

The Alberta government says it has offered Nechi alternative accommodations – something Buffalo disputes.

Former Infrastructure Minister Prasad Panda, said in April the government had gone above and beyond their obligations to try and find a workable solution.

“I can tell you, we made multiple attempts to work with them co-operatively,” Panda told reporters. “We were not successful.”

Panda said in a subsequent interview that he’d given the infrastructure department the direction to evict Nechi from the land after failing to reach a compromise for more than two years.

Buffalo says she’s heard no update from the province.

Meanwhile, Dreelan, Poundmaker’s community engagement officer, glances out her office window daily at the weather-worn trailers.

Among her duties is to work with an estimated 60 to 100 Edmonton Indian Residential School survivors who live across Alberta, and in B.C., the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.

She’s documenting their stories and memories, and poring through archival material for mentions of students who may have died at the school or been taken to hospital.

Dreelan is also applying for grants to cover the cost of the time-consuming archeological work that could help identify the location and number of potential burials. The organization is working with researchers at the universities of Alberta and Calgary.

Poundmaker’s also invites former students to ceremonies and gatherings on the land. In addition to providing comfort and comradery, the events are opportunities to get information and hear their stories.

George Muldoe, 80, Gitxsan hereditary chief in Kispiox, B.C.

The 2013 ground-penetrating radar findings align with stories of survivors who also recall seeing or participating in burials in that area, she says. They’re trying to piece together a map based on this evidence.

A group of seven residential school survivors also formed a group earlier this year called the Site Preservation Society. It includes representatives from the three treaty areas in the province and the Métis.

In that group is Myrtle Steinhauer, 92, who started at the school in 1939, along with her brother.

Seated in Poundmaker’s board room earlier this month, Steinhauer remembers how lost she was when she first came to the school at age eight, understanding only Cree. The teachers and other staff were cold-hearted and abusive, she says.

Steinhauer remembers never having enough to eat, and being served bread as hard as a rock, and meats that were dry and improperly cooked.

She says matrons would smack students with a leather strap if they made a mistake while sewing or talked too loudly.

There were also frightening rumours. Whispers of students who tried to run away in winter and froze to death before they reached St. Albert. Children who fell ill and were taken to hospital, and never returned.

When a child died at school, the principal was supposed to fill out a four-page form for the Department of Indian Affairs, documenting the dates of illness or injury and death, steps the school took to get them medical help, then hold an inquiry within 48 hours of the death and inform the child’s parents.

Some records make no mention of funeral arrangements, and others reference the school covering the cost of funerals and family transportation.

Steinhauer said she and her classmates saw people digging graves around the school, and putting in dirt. The ground was disturbed and uneven in many spots, she said.

George Muldoe, 80, who is now a Gitxsan hereditary chief in Kispiox, B.C., said in a phone interview he and two classmates dug one of those graves.

Indian agents brought Muldoe the 1,500 kilometres to the school by train in 1952 because the B.C. schools were full.

He said a school supervisor would point at some of the older boys, and say, “You, you, and you. Grave detail.”

Trucks would arrive at the school, back up to the gate, and workers would drop off wooden coffins, he said.

Muldoe said there was no priest, no supervisor, and adults didn’t tell them where to dig.

It was the middle of January, and he was 15 years old, when he and two other boys started digging on a Friday afternoon. The ground was so frozen, it took them until Sunday night before they had a hole large enough to lower a box into, he said.

He didn’t know who was in the box or where they came from. There were no grave markers and no names, he said.

“You don’t have a choice. You did it or else,” Muldoe said.

About 15 years ago, Muldoe served on another preservation committee that worked to ensure the Poundmaker’s land would never be re-sold for development. They also wanted to put up a memorial, but couldn’t find the funding.

Muldoe says he’s the only surviving member of that group.

He wants site exploration work to continue without delay, to begin to provide answers about who is buried on the land and how many graves are there.

He also thinks archeologists could start work without moving the temporary buildings.

“The bodies are buried everywhere, literally,” he said. “By the school, behind the school. By the skating rink, behind the barn, behind the garage, behind the teachers’ houses.

Steinhauer says the urgency to move the buildings isn’t just about giving researchers access to perform groundwork.

“It’s not right for the people to think that they can do whatever they can do,” she said. “They have no feelings for the dead that have been buried there. They have the right to have their own privacy of land.”

Not all of the burials may have been students.

Edmonton’s Charles Camsell Hospital was a facility the federal government used to treat Indigenous tuberculosis patients, many of whom were from the northern territories.

According to hospital records later recovered by volunteers and the City of St. Albert, 98 patients had been buried on land that is now in the southwest corner of Poundmaker’s parcel and the southeast corner of the St. Albert Municipal Cemetery.

In June 1990, four former hospital workers unveiled a cairn bearing the names or other identifying information about the patients.

A large rock also sits on the bumpy ground bearing a plaque that reads, “Aboriginal cemetery, 1946 - 1966.”

Poundmaker’s newest site preservation society has similar goals.

Group member Noella Willier is a former Poundmaker’s employee, and a residential school survivor from Treaty 8 in northern Alberta.

As other Indigenous organizations announce the results of ground-penetrating radar exploration from other former residential school sites, Willier is seeking similar clarity.

She says now they have the technology, the political will and some public funding, the group must move quickly to get answers for elders and get accurate information for other living relatives.

“All we’re trying to do as a society is to move forward with honouring and respecting that sacred burial ground,” she said earlier this month, steps away from the trailer buildings. “We’re here to do as much work as we can to bring peace to the families and the communities from where those children have come from.”

Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by the latest reports.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

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