The “grave” was located under an allegedly “abusive” Catholic school.
QUICK FACTS:
- Ground-penetrating technology discovered what initially appeared to be an indigenous mass grave under an allegedly “abusive” Catholic school in Manitoba, Canada.
- Last year, the technology detected anomalies in the basement of what would have been the Pine Creek Residential School, now a church.
- The “mass grave” story led to indigenous groups attending Catholic residential schools to collect billions of dollars in reparations.
- Indigenous groups originally suggested digging up the graves would cause intergenerational trauma, although they agreed to allow the site to be dug up last month.
- According to Canadian broadcaster CBC, “The First Nation, northwest of Winnipeg, hired an archeological team from the University of Brandon to do the excavation earlier this summer.”
- “Spiritual advisers led a pipe ceremony when the search began and a sacred fire was lit nearby to ensure elders, survivors, and intergenerational survivors felt supported,” the Canadian site noted.
- After a four-week investigation, the graves were discovered to be rocks.
MASS GRAVE DEBUNKED:
- Although “no evidence of human remains” were discovered, Chief Derek Nepinak of Minegoziibe Anishinabe said the findings should take “nothing away from the difficult truths experienced by our families who attended the residential school in Pine Creek.”
- “The results of our excavation under the church should not be deemed as conclusive of other ongoing searches and efforts to identify reflections from other community processes including other GPR (ground-penetrating radar) initiatives,” Nepinak stated.
- “The true history is taking shape incrementally, and we recognize that this excavation is but a small piece of a much larger truth,” the chief added. “The results of Pine Creek are not a means to deny the truths of those who survived the residential school experience and those who did not.”
- While investigations have not yielded mass graves, many churches have been vandalized or burned due to grave rumors.
BACKGROUND:
- In 2022, academics called the so-called mass grave in Kamloops, Canada the “biggest fake news story in Canadian history.”
- Professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary Tom Flanagan said to The Post, “All this about unmarked graves and missing children triggered a moral panic. They have come to believe things for which there is no evidence and it’s taken on a life of its own.”
- Eldon Yellowhorn, a professor and founding chair of the Indigenous Studies department at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and part of the Blackfoot nation explained many discovered graves are actually from cemeteries.
- “All the radar shows you is that there are anomalies or reflections,” Yellowhord said. “The only way to be certain is to peel back the earth and ascertain what lies beneath. We have not gotten to the point where we can do that. It’s a huge job.”
