Communities from coast to coast are searching for their missing children

What can non-indigenous Canadians do to address the depths of damage our society inflicted on generations of children in residential schools?  To find out I attended the National Gathering on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites.  The fifth such National Gathering since the discovery of the 215 unmarked graves of children in Kamloops in 2021, these are hosted by the Special Interlocutor appointed to help communities now running searches at dozens of residential school sites across the country.

You can read the report I prepared for the community at Chapleau whose children are buried in that beautiful copse of trees I found this summer here. 

This logo belongs to the Office of the Special Interlocutor, Kimberly Murray. The larger bear represents the parents, family and community, while the smaller bear symbolizes the children who were stolen and never returned.

The Northern Lights in the night sky are the spirits of ancestors dancing. The dancing guides the children to reunite with their ancestors.

The stars depict the connection between the children taken from their communities and the parents left behind, who would stare at the same stars longing to be reunited.