‘Our children are not artifacts’: N.W.T. First Nation says efforts to find gravesites hampered by permit [Video]

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

The chief of Deninu Kųę́ First Nation in the N.W.T. says a territorial permit holding up his community’s effort to unearth unmarked graves erroneously calls children who died at residential school “archaeological artifacts.” 

Chief Louis Balsillie wrote a letter to the N.W.T. premier about the issue earlier this month. In that letter, he says the territory has asked that a forensic anthropologist the community is working with apply for a permit to exhume the remains of students who died at the former St. Joseph’s residential school in Fort Resolution. 

The community began looking for unmarked graves outside of the hamlet’s cemetery a few years ago, said Balsillie. Over time, he said, they realized there were burials within the cemetery that were unidentified – and that’s what they’re concentrating on now.

Balsillie believes there may be more than 60 unmarked burial sites there, and that they belong to children from outside …