The property of a former residential school in Regina, will be turned over today to a society overseeing the heritage of a cemetery, of the unmarked graves of approximately 35 to 40 children believed to have attended the school.
The Regina Indian Industrial School Society, the federal government and the RCMP will participate this afternoon in a land transfer.
A white fence along Pinkie Road in the northwest section of city is all that marks the cemetery.
The School which was established and funded by the Federal Government in 1891 and was closed in 1910.
Last August a commemorative plaque was unveiled to honour those who died while attending the Regina Indian Industrial School over 100 years ago.
“I think it’s important for people to come and to have some signifier of what this site is. People have driven by and not recognized it’s a cemetery and not recognized the significance of this cemetery. So, the plaque will help share and convey the importance to the community and the people who stop in,” said Janine Windolph, a representative of the Regina Indian Industrial School Commemorative Association. “I think it will mean a lot to the descendants to come and have that acknowledgement in their healing journeys.”
The school itself is no longer standing, as all that remains is a few to bricks covered by brush. When the school operated, it did before Saskatchewan was a province and the land was under the Northwest Territories.
The cemetery is now home to First Nations and Métis children from the prairies and the United States. Over 500 First Nations and Métis students from age three to early twenties primarily from Saskatchewan attended the school.
(PHOTO: Commemorative plaque of Regina Indian Industrial School cemetery. Dan Jones)