Fossil find adds to evidence of dinosaurs living in Arctic year-round

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Fossils from tiny baby dinosaurs discovered in northernmost Alaska offer strong evidence that the prehistoric creatures lived year-round in the Arctic and were likely warm-blooded, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

The fossils are from at least seven types of dinosaurs just hatched or still in their eggs about 70 million years ago. Researchers have never found evidence of dinosaur nests so far north, said lead author Pat Druckenmiller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North.

The find helps upend past assumptions of dinosaurs as giant cold-blooded reptiles.

"If they reproduced, then they over-wintered there. If they overwintered there, they had to deal with conditions that we don't usually associate with dinosaurs, like freezing conditions and snow," Druckenmiller said.

To survive dark Arctic winters, those dinosaurs could not have basked in the sun to warm their bodies, as lizards do, he said.

"At least these groups had endothermy," he said, using the term for the ability of animals to warm their bodies through internal functions. "They had a degree of warm-bloodedness."

The discovery site is a steep bluff on the Colville River on Alaska's North Slope, at latitude 70 and about 250 miles (400 km) north of the Arctic Circle. In the Cretaceous period, when North America was positioned differently, it was even farther north, at latitude 80 or 85, Druckenmiller said.

The region was much warmer then than Alaska's North Slope is now but hardly tropical. From remnants of ancient plants, scientists calculate the average annual temperature at about 6 degrees Celsius (42.8 Fahrenheit) – similar to Juneau, Alaska – meaning below-freezing winters with snow, Druckenmiller said.

While Alaska's North Slope endures two months of total winter darkness now, during the Cretaceous period it was in total darkness for up to four months a year, he said.

Finding the tiny bones and teeth, some the size of a pinhead, was laborious, Druckenmiller said. They were identified through microscopic examination after being sifted out multiple times from sediments collected in expeditions stretching back decades, he said.

"I liken it to gold panning. It's a very slow process," he said.

The discovery site, called the Prince Creek Formation, has proved crucial to modern understanding of the ancient creatures.

The first dinosaur discovery was made there in the 1960s by a petroleum geologist. Subsequent expeditions found previously unknown dinosaur species. Over time, evidence of year-round Arctic occupation has mounted.

At the same formation, other scientists found a jawbone from a baby dromaeosaurid, detailed in a study published last year in the journal PLOS ONE. That meat-eating dinosaur would have been the size of a small puppy and incapable of long-distance migration, said co-author Tony Fiorillo, a Southern Methodist University paleontologist.

The new study about nesting dinosaurs strengthens the growing realization that dinosaurs lived full-time in the Arctic and thus could not be cold-blooded, Fiorillo said.

"This new study broadens the conversation about year-round dinosaurs in the Arctic. It didn't invent the conversation," he said.

(Reporting By Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; editing by Richard Pullin)

Alberta paleontologists find dramatic change in bite force as tyrannosaurs matured

Tyrannosaurs are well known as having been ferocious predators at the top of the food chain millions of years ago, but a study led by an Alberta-based researcher shows the reptiles didn't start out life that way.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

François Therrien, curator of dinosaur paleoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta., said the study focused on tyrannosaur teeth and their dramatic change as they matured.

He collaborated with Darla Zelenitsky and Jared Voris of the University of Calgary, as well as Kohei Tanaka of the University of Tsukuba in Japan.

For the study, published this week in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, the researchers examined the lower jaws from the Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus, types of tyrannosaurs commonly found in Canada that predated the T. rex by millions of years.

"Our fossil records for those two species of tyrannosaurs is excellent," Therrien said about the collection at the museum.

"We have so many specimens of those ... that represent a full growth series from very young individuals that were probably three or four years of age all the way to fully grown adults that were over 20 years of age."

By examining a wide range of fossils, the researchers were able to see a significant change in tooth size and jaw force once the tyrannosaurs reached about 11 years of age.

Feeding behaviour did not appear to change during the lifespan of the tyrannosaurs, because their jaws were adapted to capturing and seizing prey with their mouths, probably because the forelimbs were too short to grasp food, Therrien said.

"Tyrannosaurs were truly unique when you look at all the theropods," he said. "They were atypical ... because their bite and their skulls were their main weapon for killing prey."

But what did change, he said, is the size of their teeth and their bite force.

A tyrannosaur at about three years of age was still a deadly predator, but it had smaller blade-like teeth that could only slice through flesh. The bite force, Therrien added, was about 10 per cent that of a fully grown alligator.

That means younger tyrannosaurs ate smaller prey and had to compete with other like-sized predators such as the Velociraptor.

Once tyrannosaurs turned 11, Therrien explained, they went through a growth spurt in which their teeth became larger and wider. By the time the reptiles were fully grown, their bite force was eight times more than that of an alligator.

And that meant their diets also changed.

"These teeth were better adapted for resisting twisting stresses either associated with biting of big prey or even crushing bone."

Therrien said his study shows that young tyrannosaurs were distinct predators that occupied different ecological niches.

"Young tyrannosaurs were not just scaled-down versions of the mature parents," he said. "They were creatures that actually had their own lifestyles."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2021.

Daniela Germano, The Canadian Press

New renewable energy projects will be more cost-effective than coal: report

Nearly two-thirds of all wind and solar projects built globally last year could generate cheaper electricity than even the least expensive coal alternatives, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

© Photographer: Jeremy Suyker/Bloomberg ORG XMIT: 775664878 A construction worker passes between solar panels at the Renewable Energy Systems Ltd. solar park, on a brownfield site formerly occupied by an ArcelorMittal SA metals plant, during construction in Laudun L'Ardoise, France, on Wednesday, June 9, 2021. 

EU member states will put more than 34 billion euros of stimulus into clean energy, including renewable power projects, grid upgrades, and renewable hydrogen deployment, according to recovery plans submitted to the European Commission.

Because of downward costs associated with wind farms and solar panels, the report states that 62 per cent of renewable energy projects could be more cost-effective than coal equivalents of up to 800 gigawatts, approximately enough to meet the U.K.’s electricity demand 10 times over.

“Today renewables are the cheapest source of power,” said Francesco La Camera the director-general of IRENA in a press release , “Renewables present countries tied to coal with an economically attractive phase-out agenda that ensures they meet growing energy demand, while saving costs, adding jobs, boosting growth and meeting climate ambition.”

IRENA’s cost analysis program has been collecting performance data of renewable energy technologies since 2012and simultaneously reporting on the costs of those technologies. Two key data sources were used to create the report, including the IRENA Renewable Cost Database and the IRENA Auctions and Power Purchase Agreement databases. The report analyzed approximately 20,000 renewable energy projects around the world and also data from 13,000 auctions and renewable power purchase agreements.


Last year solar prices fell by 16 per cent, according to the report, while the cost of onshore wind fell by 13 per cent and offshore wind by nine per cent during the same time period.

Video: International Energy Agency report states fossil fuel investment must end to reach climate goals (Global News)

In comparison, the price of a new coal plant in Europe would well exceed the cost of a wind or solar farm when mandatory carbon prices are included, according to the Guardian . In the U.S. renewable forms of energy could be between 75 and 91 per cent cheaper in comparison to existing coal-fired power plants and in India renewable energy sources would be 87 and 91 per cent cheaper than new coal plants.

Replacing active coal plants with unsubsidized renewable energy could also save $32.3 billion (39.74 billion CAD) annually in energy system costs, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by three gigatonnes, according to the report.

Carbon savings from phasing out 800GW of coal power, the report said, would have the equivalent of cutting the world’s energy-related emissions by nine per cent last year, or around 20 per cent of carbon savings required by 2030 to mitigate global heating by 1.5C over pre-industrial temperatures.

La Camera said the agency’s latest report provides evidence that the world is “far beyond the tipping point of coal,” partly because costs associated with solar power have fallen by more than 85 per cent between 2010-20, while onshore wind costs have fallen by 56 per cent and offshore wind by 48 per cent in that same time.

IRENA’s most recent report also predicts the trend of falling renewable energy prices to continue in the coming years. In the next two years alone, the report projects three-quarters of all novel solar power initiatives to be cheaper than their coal counterparts, while onshore wind costs will fall to be 20-27 per cent cheaper than the cheapest coal option.

“The trend confirms that low-cost renewables are not only the backbone of the electricity system, but that they will also enable electrification in end uses like transport, buildings and industry and unlock competitive indirect electrification with renewable hydrogen,” said the report.

Boom in Native American oil complicates Biden climate push

© Provided by The Canadian Press

NEW TOWN, N.D. (AP) — On oil well pads carved from the wheat fields around Lake Sakakawea, hundreds of pump jacks slowly bob to extract 100 million barrels of crude annually from a reservation shared by three Native American tribes.

About half their 16,000 members live on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation atop one of the biggest U.S. oil discoveries in decades, North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation.

The drilling rush has brought the tribes unimagined wealth -- more than $1.5 billion and counting -- and they hope it will last another 20 to 25 years. The boom also propelled an almost tenfold spike in oil production from Native American lands since 2009, federal data shows, complicating efforts by President Joe Biden to curb carbon emissions.

Burning of oil from tribal lands overseen by the U.S. government now produces greenhouse gases equivalent to about 12 million vehicles a year, according to an Associated Press analysis. But Biden exempted Native American lands from a suspension of new oil and gas leases on government-managed land in deference to tribes’ sovereign status.

A judge in Louisiana temporarily blocked the suspension June 15, but the administration continues to develop plans that could extend the ban or make leases more costly.

With tribal lands now producing more than 3% of U.S. oil and huge reserves untapped, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to lead a U.S. cabinet-level agency — faces competing pressures to help a small number of tribes develop their fossil fuels while also addressing climate change that affects all Native communities.

“We’re one of the few tribes that have elected to develop our energy resources. That’s our right,” tribal Chairman Mark Fox told AP at the opening of a Fort Berthold museum and cultural center built with oil revenue. “We can develop those resources and do it responsibly so our children and grandchildren for the next 100 years have somewhere to live.”

Smallpox nearly wiped out the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes in the mid-1800s. They lost most of their territory to broken treaties — and a century later, their best remaining lands along the Missouri River were flooded when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created Lake Sakakawea. With dozens of villages uprooted, many people moved to a replacement community above the lake — New Town.

Today, leaders of the three tribes view oil as their salvation and want to keep drilling before it's depleted and the world moves past fossil fuels.

And they want the Biden administration to speed up drilling permits and fend off efforts to shut down a pipeline carrying most reservation oil to refineries.

PIPELINE FIGHT

Yet tribes left out of the drilling boom have become outspoken against fossil fuels as climate change worsens. One is the Standing Rock Sioux about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the south.

Home to the Dakota and Lakota nations, Standing Rock gained prominence during a months-long standoff between law enforcement and protesters, including tribal officials, who tried to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline that carries Fort Berthold crude.

A judge revoked the pipeline's government permit because of inadequate environmental analysis and allowed crude to flow during a new review. But Standing Rock wants the administration to halt the oil for good, fearing a pipeline break could contaminate its drinking water.

Meantime, attention surrounding the skirmish provided the Sioux with foundation backing to develop a wind farm in Porcupine Hills, an area of scrub oak and buffalo grass with cattle ranches.

The pipeline fight stirs bitter memories in Fawn Wasin Zi, a teacher who chairs the Standing Rock renewable power authority. She grew up hearing her father and grandmother tell about a government dam that created Lake Oahe — how they had to leave their home then watch government agents burn it, only to be denied housing, electricity and other promised compensation.

Wasin Zi, whose ancestors followed legendary Lakota leader Sitting Bull, wants to ensure the tribe doesn't fall victim yet again to a changing world, where fossil fuels warm the planet and bring drought and wildfire.

“We have to find a way to use the technology that's available right now, whether it's geothermal or solar or wind," she said.

Only a dozen of the 326 tribal reservations produce significant oil, according to a drilling analysis provided to AP by S&P Global Platts.

Biden's nominee to oversee them as assistant secretary for Indian affairs, Bryan Newland, recently told a U.S. Senate committee the administration recognizes the importance of oil and gas to some reservations and pledged to let tribes determine resource development.

Interior officials denied interview requests about tribal energy plans, but said tribes were consulted in April after Biden ordered the department to "engage with tribal authorities" on developing renewables and fossil fuels.

Joseph McNeill Jr, manager of Standing Rock’s energy authority, said a conference call with Interior yielded no pledges to further the tribe's wind project. Fort Berthold officials said they've had no offers of discussions with the administration.

ONE TRIBE'S BUILDING BOOM

Fort Berthold still reels from ills oil brought — worse crime and drugs, tanker truck traffic, road fatalities, spills of oil and wastewater. Tribal members lament that stars are lost in the glare of flaring waste gas from wells.

Yet oil brought positive changes, too. As the tribes' coffers fattened, dozens of projects got underway. The reservation now boasts new schools, senior centers, parks, civic centers, health and drug rehab facilities. Oil money is building a $26 million greenhouse complex heated by electricity from gas otherwise wasted.

The $30 million cultural center in New Town pieces together the tribes’ fractured past through displays and artifacts. A sound studio captures stories from elders who lived through dam construction and flooding along the Missouri. And one exhibit traces the oil boom after fracking allowed companies to tap reserves once too difficult to drill.

“Our little town, New Town, changed overnight,” said MHA Nation Interpretive Center Director Delphine Baker. “We never had traffic lights growing up. It's like I moved to a different town.”

HOPING FOR “MORNING LIGHT”

Lower on the Missouri, Standing Rock grapples with high energy costs. There’s no oil worth extracting, no gas or coal. The biggest employer beside tribal government is a casino, where revenue plummeted during the pandemic.

“There’s nothing here. No jobs. Nothing,” said Donald Whitelightning, Jr., who lives in Cannon Ball, near the Dakota Access Pipeline protest.

Whitelightning, who cares for his mother in a modest home, said he pays up to $500 a month for electricity in winter. Utility costs, among North Dakota's highest, severely strain a reservation officials say has 40% poverty and 75% unemployment.

The tribe hopes its wind project, Anpetu Wi, meaning “morning light,” will help. Officials predict its 235 megawatts — enough for roughly 94,000 homes — would double their annual revenue and fund benefits like those Fort Berthold derives from oil — housing, health care, more jobs.

Standing Rock's power authority can directly negotiate aspects of the project. Yet it needs Interior approval because the U.S. holds tribal lands in trust.

“AN OIL FIELD TO PROTECT”

Outside North Dakota, tribes with oil — the Osage in Oklahoma, the Navajo in the Southwest and Native corporations in Alaska — also are pushing the Biden administration to cede power over energy development, including letting tribes conduct environmental reviews.

A Navajo company's operations in the Aneth field in southern Utah bring about $28 million to $35 million annually. Active since the 1950s, the field likely has another 30 years of life, said James McClure, chief executive of the Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Co..

The company has considered expanding into federal land in New Mexico and Colorado. Biden’s attempts to suspend new leases could slow those plans, and it’s considering helium production as an option.

In northern Oklahoma, the Osage have been drilling oil for more than a century.

Cognizant of global warming and shifting energy markets, they are pondering renewables, too. For now, they want the Biden administration to speed up drilling permits.

“We are looking at what is going to be best for us,” said Everett Waller, chairman of the tribe’s energy regulator. “I wasn’t given a wind turbine. I was given an oil field to protect.”

___

Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Ariz.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Matthew Brown And Felicia Fonseca, The Associated Press

IT'S FREE ONLINE
Dan Levy called this Indigenous studies course 'transformational' – here's how you can take it, too

hello-canada 

Dan Levy called the University of Alberta's Indigenous Canada course "transformational" when he took it last year. The free 12-lesson online class "explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations," and if you're curious about learning more about Canada's Indigenous peoples, it's a great place to start.

Taught by Dr. Tracy Bear and Dr. Paul Gareau, it examines Indigenous creation stories and worldviews, cultures and history, including the residential school system. It also looks at issues faced by Indigenous women and girls, and the way forward through reconciliation, among other topics.

The University of Alberta has the only Indigenous studies faculty in North America. While other post-secondary institutions have schools of Indigenous studies, U of A's is the only dedicated faculty.

Last year, the Schitt's Creek star and creator also encouraged fans to donate to the faculty, saying he would match all contributions up to a maximum of $25,000.

"If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that we need to actively relearn history – history that wasn't taught to us in school – to better understand and contextualize our lives and to better support and be of service to each other," he said at the time.

Earlier this month, U of A released a playlist with Dan, Tracy and Paul talking about each class, for those who are curious about the star's experiences last year.

U of A says you can enroll and join the course anytime.

REST IN POWER

Longtime Havasupai leader was staunch advocate for his tribe

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A longtime leader of the Havasupai Tribe who fought to protect its resources by lobbying against mining around the Grand Canyon and snowmaking at an Arizona ski resort has died.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Services for Rex Tilousi begin Friday with a traditional wake at the family’s home in the village of Supai, followed by public events and burial over the weekend at the Grand Canyon, where Tilousi retired as a cultural interpreter for the national park.

“He’s going to be there to protect it for eternity, so that provided some comfort to the family,” said his niece, Carletta Tilousi.

Tilousi died last week of natural causes with his family at his side, she said. He was 73.

Tilousi served as a tribal leader for more than 30 years, including multiple stints as chairman and vice chairman of the small tribe whose reservation lies deep in a gorge off the Grand Canyon.

He also was a spiritual leader, working to preserve the tribe’s way of life, its songs and the Grand Canyon that was home to the Havasupai before it became a national park, the tribe said. Friends, family and co-workers remembered him as a peaceful, kind-hearted man with a warm and welcoming spirit.

When Tilousi wrapped up interpretive talks at the Grand Canyon, visitors would follow him yearning for more, said Jan Balsom, a senior adviser at the park.

“I joked about him being a buddha,” she said. “He had this effect on people. As they listened to him, they were brought into his world and his way of understanding the Grand Canyon.”

As an advocate, Tilousi sought to keep companies from mining near the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park and joined other tribes in speaking out against snowmaking at the Arizona Snowbowl outside Flagstaff. In both cases, he feared the tribe’s water resources could become contaminated and the tribe’s spiritual practices negatively affected.

The work took him to the Arizona Legislature and across the country and world, raising the profile of the Havasupai Tribe.

“He was very committed to voicing concerns on behalf of the animals and the water and the people,” Carletta Tilousi said. “He committed all his time to public service, and that was very impressive.”

The federal government ultimately approved snowmaking with reclaimed water. Uranium mining has been at a standstill while companies wait for prices to rebound.

Stephen Hirst, the author of a book on the Havasupai called “I am the Grand Canyon,” had been working with Tilousi to write down stories and remembrances, and record songs so that Havasupai children could have them.

“We didn’t get that project finished, unfortunately, but there are some amazing stories,” Hirst said.

Roger Clark recalled one of the first conversations he had with Tilousi, who asked Clark why he should trust him as a conservationist. Clark responded that Tilousi had no reason to trust him and said that while he cared about the Grand Canyon, he could learn a lot from Tilousi’s connection to the land.

“He smiled and said, ‘OK, Roger Ramjet,’” Clark said, referencing a classic cartoon character who was out to save the world.

“That really started our relationship in a humorous, compassionate and respectful way, and it got richer, from my point of view, from then on,” Clark said.

On the Havasupai reservation, Tilousi hunted, rode horses and shared Havasupai stories and culture that he had to learn later in life. Hirst said many tribal stories were passed down during the winter when children, including Tilousi, were away at boarding school.

“It was hard for him,” Hirst said. “So he became determined to do that — he learned old songs.”

Tilousi graduated from Phoenix Indian School in 1967. He later attended Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.

Tilousi and his wife, Rosella Sinyella Tilousi, had two daughters and four grandchildren. Tilousi and his wife, who died last year, will be buried alongside each other and near other Havasupai tribal members at the cemetery within Grand Canyon National Park.

The Associated Press

U.S. to investigate Indigenous boarding school burial sites after Canada’s discovery
Eric Stober 


The U.S. will soon launch an investigation into the legacy of its Native American boarding schools, and officials said it is inspired by the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C.

© AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017 file photo, a vehicle arrives at the abandoned Chilocco Indian School campus in Newkirk, Okla.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative on Tuesday, which will carry with it a report on potential burial sites related to the federal boarding school program.

Read more: Manitoba first nation works to identify 104 potential graves at former Brandon residential school

The U.S. began implementing Native American boarding schools with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819 to "culturally assimilate Indigenous children by forcibly relocating them from their families and communities to distant residential facilities," according to a statement from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

"Their American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian identities, languages, and beliefs were to be forcibly suppressed [at those schools]," the statement read.

"For over 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities."

While the residential schools continue to operate today in the U.S., the policy of assimilation ran until the 1960s, according to the Department of the Interior.

By 1926, more than 80 per cent of Indigenous school-age children were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

Video: Indigenous communities react to Pope’s comments on residential schools

Indigenous parents were not allowed to visit their children at the schools and abuse and injuries were "routine," officials said.

According to the Interior Department's statement, the discovery of 215 unmarked Indigenous graves in Canada by the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc First Nation "prompted the Department to undertake this new initiative."

The discovery in Canada has since sparked a federal search for more unmarked Indigenous graves at residential schools across the country.

The U.S.'s investigation will primarily focus on identifying boarding school student burial sites, and a final report will be submitted by April 1, 2022.

Read more: Canada needs ‘exhaustive’ probe into burial sites at residential schools, UN says

“We must shed light on what happened at federal Boarding Schools,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland in a statement.

"As we move forward in this work, we will engage in Tribal consultation on how best to use this information, protect burial sites, and respect families and communities.”

— with files from the Associated Press

Survivors and historical archives chronicle abuse at Marieval residential school
Christopher Nardi 

POST MEDIA

© Provided by National Post Undated photo of a religious procession at Marieval Indian Residential School.

As Canada reels at the discovery of 751 unmarked graves near Marieval Indian Residential School, survivors and historical documents recount the abuse inflicted on Indigenous students who were ripped from their communities to attend the institution.

“We went to boarding school, they brought us there and we stayed there. We learned because they pounded it into us. Really, they were very mean. When I say pounding, I really mean pounding. Those nuns were very mean to us,” eighty-year-old Florence Sparvier recalled during a press conference Thursday.

Sparvier, who spoke to media right after Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme revealed details of the macabre discovery in a cemetery adjacent to where Marieval once stood, was the third in her family to attend the residential school after her mother and her grandmother.

She said Indigenous students were sent there to learn how to be Roman Catholic and were forced to set aside all aspects of their culture, language, beliefs and Indigenous upbringing.

“We were taught at home that we had to look after ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. But that got all stripped away when we went to boarding school. They told us what to say,” Sparvier said. “We learned to not like who we were.”

Video: Residential school survivors on the scars of abuse (cbc.ca)

Duration 5:33

“They were very condemning about our people. They told us our people, our parents and grandparents didn’t have a way to be spiritual because we were all heathens.”

751 unmarked graves reported found at former Sask. residential school

Why so many children died at Indian Residential Schools

As it was in many residential schools across the country, Sparvier said parents had little choice but to send their children to the residential school, lest one of them be sent to jail.

Records and interviews collected by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), researchers at the University of Regina (U of R) and newspapers all paint a similar picture of Marieval residential school.

One Cowessess First Nation resident, Carol Lavallee, told the Regina Leader-Post in 2007 that she was herded up like cattle when taken to Marieval at only six years old.

“When they came and took me to residential school at six years old they came and got us in a cattle truck,” Lavallee said, as quoted in a U of R document. “I remember I was so small that I couldn’t see over the box. My sister was standing right tight against me to hold me still so I wouldn’t be bounced around in the back of this cattle truck.”

• Email: cnardi@postmedia.com | Twitter: ChrisGNardi

© Provided by National Post Some of the graves at the Marieval residential school now marked with red flags.

Order of Catholic nuns agrees to enhance access to residential school records


VICTORIA — An order of Catholic nuns whose members worked at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia says it has reached an agreement to improve access to its private archival records, following mounting calls for transparency.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Sisters of St. Ann and Royal BC Museum say in a joint statement they have signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance access to the documents for both the museum and the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of B.C.

It says the needs of the Indigenous community are at the centre of the records review process and the agreement will also make the documents accessible to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, as requested.

The First Nation said last month that what are believed to be the remains of 215 children were found by ground-penetrating radar at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

"We affirm our commitment to collaborate in finding the truth and will assist in the process in whatever way we can,” Sister Marie Zarowny, president and board chair of the Sisters of St. Ann, said in the statement.

The nuns will contribute in any way possible for transparency, healing and reconciliation, she added.

The Congregation of Sisters of St. Anne, based in Quebec, said on its website that its nuns in B.C. taught at the residential school from 1890 to 1970 and they were also involved in three other residential schools.

The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc could not immediately be reached for comment.

The agreement aims to make the residential school records, and associated records containing information about the Sisters of St. Ann's involvement at residential schools, accessible to Indigenous communities with a goal of digital sharing, the statement says.

The transfer to BC Archives, housed at the museum, of all records held by the Sisters of St. Ann Archives was originally scheduled to occur in 2027 and has been accelerated to 2025, when the Collections and Research Building opens.

Calls have grown for the release of residential school records since the discovery of the unmarked graves was announced last month.

On June 4, the First Nations Leadership Council penned a letter to Premier John Horgan calling for the immediate release to First Nations of the Sisters of St. Ann's records, already held at the museum through an agreement.

The museum responded with a statement in support of the council, but said the order had its own locked and self-contained office space and managed the records independently of the museum.

Terry Teegee, B.C. regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said the agreement is a "good development" for First Nations communities searching for information about former students and loved ones.

"In terms of truth and reconciliation, we're still in this truth period, especially with the many First Nations students who are still unaccounted for," said Teegee, who is also a member of the First Nations Leadership Council.

The agreement does not outline what the records may hold, but Teegee said it's important that whatever exists be released quickly and without bureaucratic barriers to access for communities seeking answers.

"What we're looking for is full transparency and making sure the information that is in the archives can be easily accessed," Teegee said.

The new memorandum of understanding takes effect July 1 and will remain in place until the review, processing and transfer of records to the BC Archives is complete.

Staff at BC Archives will work with the history and dialogue centre, as a "neutral third party," to begin auditing the holdings next month, the statement says.

The history and dialogue centre and National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will also work with the signatories to ensure transparency.

"All archives from organizations that were involved with residential schools can play a role in the process of truth-finding and reconciliation," said Daniel Muzyka, the museum's board chair and acting CEO.

Speeding access to the records for Indigenous communities is a positive step along that path, he added.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2021.

The Canadian Press

'Devastating' residential school grave discoveries invite London-area questions, band chief says


The discovery of hundreds more unmarked children's graves at another former residential school site in Western Canada is "devastating" and invites questions about any unknown graves in Southwestern Ontario, an area Indigenous leader says.

A search has revealed what are thought to be 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School, about 140 km from Regina, just weeks after a similar discovery of 215 unmarked graves was made on the grounds of another former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

“I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it, to tell you the truth,” Chief Mark Peters of the Munsee-Delaware Nation, south of London, said Thursday. “It opens a lot of wounds that people may have thought were closing up.”

The grim legacy of Canada's system of church- and government-run residential schools, with their forced assimilation of Indigenous children taken from their families, and often abused, came under renewed and intense public scrutiny following the discovery of the mass grave in B.C.

But the additional discovery of hundreds more such graves in Saskatchewan, left Peters asking when it will end.

“To become aware of the numbers in Kamloops a couple of weeks ago, it felt like quite a blow,” he said. “And now, to find out about this further discovery, is just, when's it going to stop?"

Ontario was home to 18 residential schools in the 1800s and 1900s, including two in Southwestern Ontario — the Mohawk Institute on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, near Brantford, and the Mount Elgin school, near London on the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.

Some 1,200 children attended the Mount Elgin school, which operated from 1851 until 1946, and later as a day school after 1967. Forced into hard work on the residential school's farm, some children left poignant and painful memories of their experiences scrawled on the walls of a barn that survived the school.

At least five children are known to have died at the residential school.

The grave-site discoveries in Western Canada, Peters said, "surely makes you wonder: Is there more here, too, than what we know?"

"We have a lot of (band) members here who attended that school. People have had some pretty harsh experiences," he said.

Chief Jacqueline French of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation could not be reached for comment Thursday, but has said any search of the grounds for unknown graves would have to be a band decision made in consultation with the community.

Grand Chief Joel Abram of the London-based Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians (AIAI) said he "wouldn't be surprised" if there are unknown graves at the former Mount Elgin site, and that he'd support further investigation.

“We need to begin that process,” said Abram, a member of the nearby Oneida Nation of the Thames.

“I think it should be driven by the (First) Nations where they are and the survivor’s families," he said. "Consideration has to be given to families from other (First) Nations, too, because we know that kids were sent to schools away from them so they wouldn’t be likely to run away.”

The AIAI represents 20,000 Indigenous people from seven member communities, including several from Southwestern Ontario.

The residential school system operated well into the 1900s, removing about 150,000 Indigenous children from their families.

More than 4,100 children died at the schools, officials have reported.

Crisis support for survivors and others affected by residential schools is available through a 24/7 hotline, at 1-866-925-4419.

- The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada

Calvi Leon, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, London Free Press