By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer

Content warning: brief descriptions of residential school violence and cultural genocide of Indigenous Peoples, mentions of burial sites. 

“I grieve for all who never made it — the children who never made it home and for survivors and their families who could not keep carrying the pain.”

These words come from Phyllis Webstad, member of the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation (St-wet-lem hight-lem), founder of Orange Shirt Society, and survivor of the St. Joseph’s Mission Indian Residential School. Orange Shirt Society started Orange Shirt Day as a holiday “designed to commemorate the residential school experience, to witness and honour the healing journey of the survivors and their families, and to commit to the ongoing process of reconciliation.”

In 2021, the Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN), or the T’exelcemc (teh-huwl), began investigating the St. Joseph’s Mission site for “deaths and disappearances.” Less than 300 kilometres away, at what was the Kamloops Indian Residential School, around 200 possible burial sites were discovered the same year. “For decades, the Elders in our community had whispered about the dark secrets of life at St. Joseph’s Mission. There were stories of neglect, sexual assault, disappearance, and deaths of children,” wrote WLFN Chief Willie Sellars (pictured) in a press release.

In 1981, St. Joseph’s Mission shut its doors. For nearly 100 years before that, it was part of the broader Canadian residential school system. Across the country, First Nations youth were forcibly removed from their homes and made to attend these schools and assimilate into Christian, Euro-settler culture. For the WLFN, cultural genocide was carried out “just kilometres” from T’exelc, the centre of WLFN territory (St. Joseph’s Mission).

WLFN is located in the interior of BC, north of Vancouver in the Cariboo Regional District. It is one of 17 bands that make up the Secwépemc (or Shuswap) Nation, which share a common Secwepemctsín language containing four dialects, three of which remain. Traditionally, each band has existed “as a self governing Nation.” Currently, WLFN is in the process of BC Treaty negotiations, designed to “recognize and reconcile pre-existing Indigenous sovereignty.”

“How can people heal if they can’t safely gather at the place where their family members suffered for generations?” — Willie Sellars, Williams Lake First Nation Chief

This year, “WLFN has completed survivor interviews, archival research, community engagement, and the geophysical investigation of more than 470 acres of property surrounding the site of the former residential school,” announced a WLFN Facebook post. The post explained that “ground penetrating radar has revealed 159 reflections that show characteristics indicative of human burials.”

Amid this investigation, WLFN purchased the St. Joseph’s Mission site in 2023. Now, the William Lake First Nation is seeking help from the federal government to restore the land. St. Joseph’s Mission “needs to be a place of closure, of gathering in a good way, of honouring our ancestors and survivors,” Chief Sellars told CBC. While WLFN sought funding from the federal government in December, it has yet to receive a response. “People want to go to the site [ . . . ] but right now, it’s a crime scene. We can’t gather here,” Sellars continued. “How can people heal if they can’t safely gather at the place where their family members suffered for generations?”

Ultimately, the First Nation’s “vision is to transform this site into a place where people can gather, honour those who attended this facility, and learn more about the legacy of Canada’s residential schools,” shared Whitney Spearing, lead investigator for the St. Joseph’s Mission project, via the press release.

While the country has funded WLFN under its Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund, the Nation said “there has been no support offered by the government of Canada toward either the acquisition of the St. Joseph Mission’s property or the commemoration of the site.” Sellars noted, “It is profoundly disturbing to me that we are not receiving any support from the government of Canada toward any property-related initiative.”

Next steps may be uncertain, but the process of finding these potential burial sites and uncovering their stories has “forced Canadians to acknowledge the reality of residential schools,” Sellars said. “There can be no reconciliation before there is truth.”

The documentary Sugarcane chronicles a deeper look into abuse at St. Joseph’s Mission.