‘This is your gathering’: unmarked burials conference begins in Iqaluit
Sheldon Nipisar from Arviat drums in a circle, surrounded by elders and residential school survivors from Indigenous communities across Canada at the opening ceremony of the National Gathering on Unmarked Burials in Iqaluit, Tuesday. Representatives from Indigenous communities from beyond Nunavut are attending the three-day conference at the Aqsarniit hotel. Qikiqtani Inuit Association vice-president Levi Barnabus delivered opening remarks, welcoming the crowd attending in person and those tuning in online. “This is your gathering,” he said. “Some of the conversations may be difficult. We are all here in this together.” (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Wonder , how much this gathering is costing ?
Single people’s tax money only show up to the spending system in the government after about twenty years later in a very small portions,, your tax is a minimum penny to a dollar, and you expect to be totally need to be heard about…? Your penny….
Really! You want to find
2 years since “anomalies” were detected by radar but zero Graves actually found. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Graves have been detected and corpses have been exhumed for decades. One of the first discoveries occurred on the grounds of Battleford Industrial Schools in 1974, where 74 unmarked graves were identified and excavated. Earlier this year, human remains were identified at Saddle Lake/Quills; that investigation and dozens of others are continuing. The process is very slow, since the work is being done in consultation with families, the community, the police, technical personnel, and multiple stakeholder agencies.
Exactly, this has been known for a long time. The real conversation we should be having is around why it became a national panic in 2021.
Any thoughts on that?
I knew of the issue before 2021. I didnt know there was work on this happing for a long time… the question shouldn’t be why in 2021 was there ‘national panic’ around this but why did it take until 2021 for this conversation to come regularly known. And why is there not more regular updates as to what is currently happening.
More money in panic.
The context in 2021 was that there were 100s or 1000s of unmarked child graves with a context: they were of children who were neglected or murdered. Yet we move ahead three years later and there is no evidence of some mass genocide and some MPs still want to criminalize asking questions about the anomalies and whether the evidence confirms the big outcry starting with Kamloops and the cancel culture that ensued and destroyed anyone, including academics, who asked reasonable questions.
Unmarked graves have been a thing since neanderthals. There are lots of all races and genders because grave markers decay and communities move. Jumping to mass genocide conclusions without evidence undermines reconciliation.
The context was the racial reckoning / moral panic that followed the killing of George Floyd in the Minneapolis. For a time all the media could talk about was racism, everywhere it set its gaze it saw racism, whether it was there or not. This publication was no different.
Where are all the unmarked Inuit graves from pre-missionary times? Why are the Inuit not freaking out about those? Unmarked and forgotten Inuit graves are all over this territory. I’ll bet some of those folks even died under suspicious circumstances. I demand an inquiry! Paid for by Inuit out of their own money, please. With maximum guilt, and minimum compassion for how times were different back then and people did the best they could under the circumstances. Fair is fair, right?
Has there had been unmark graves we are not aware of in Nunavut? It would be hard to hide unmark graves in two communities RC and Anglican earliest postings as churches in Kivalliq and Baffin. I think Winnipeg or BC would be more appropriate gathering places.
Why would hey be more appropriate than having it in Nunavut? There is unmarked graves in many places down south where Inuit were buried, a lot of them from Nunavut, having it in Nunavut makes the best place to hold this for Nunavummiut.
My siblings and I had found our mother’s grave twenty years ago or abouts. My second oldest made picture with our mother’s name, date of death. But there was a extreme high tide had destroyed the picture frame that my youngest daughter and I found the broken glass strewed probably far from her grave next to another relative.
Lots of unmarked graves right in the old Iqaluit cemetery, nothing to do with missing or murdered Inuit though. High tide and winds and even family neglect were the causes of that.