Timeline: The search for graves at the former Mohawk Institute
A TV version of this story will air Friday at 5 p.m. on CTV Kitchener as part of our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation special. It will also be available online following the broadcast.
Warning: This story contains disturbing details
It’s been over a year since news of a mass grave uncovered at a former B.C. residential school put reconciliation in the spotlight across Canada and here in Ontario where Canada’s longest-running residential school was located.
Over the past year, survivors of The Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford have recalled the horrors experienced at the institution.
They've also pushed for a criminal investigation in addition to a search for unmarked graves on school grounds. The Mohawk Institute was in operation from July 1, 1885, to June 27, 1970.
“Deep inside, I’m still hurting like it was just yesterday... it doesn’t go away,” survivor Geronimo Henry said during a memorial held at the former Mohawk Institute on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30, 2021.
Less than one month later, preparations for a search of the school grounds began.
Before the site, now home to the Woodland Cultural Centre, could be investigated, a special task force had to be trained to use the ground penetrating radar technology.
“When children died, we were never told what happened to them. We believe some of them died as a result of the actions of the staff and these deaths are highly suspicious,” said survivor Dawn Hill.
In November 2021, the search began.
Roughly a year later, the ground search is ongoing.
The Survivors Secretariat, the group leading the investigation, now says through records they can confirm a total of 97 deaths tied to the former Mohawk Institute.
The toll is more than double what the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation initially reported.
“I think we can safely anticipate that we're going to continue to hear and see in the records that children died,” Laura Arndt, lead of the Survivors Secretariat said earlier this month.
Residential school survivor Roberta Hill called the rising death toll heartbreaking and shocking.
“How could so many children pass away in a residential school? We didn’t go to school to die,” said Hill in September of 2022.
The Survivors Secretariat said they searched about 9.5 acres, which accounts for about 1.5 per cent of the grounds.
As the country marks the second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, survivors are hopeful the children who died at the school will finally be able to go home.
“Why not give the families some peace of mind and say ‘here’s where your relative is,’” said Hill.
Support for is available for residential school survivors and those affected by the ongoing legacy of residential schools.
The National Indian Residential School Crisis Line can be reached 24-hours a day, 7-days a week at 1-866-925-4419.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.