After nearly a decade of work, 38 feathers now mark Regina Indian Industrial School cemetery graves
CBC
Warning: This story contains distressing details.
Sarah Longman has been seeking to honour the children buried at the Regina Indian Industrial School cemetery for nearly a decade.
This week, ahead of the inaugural National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Longman watched as orange feathers, made from metal, were placed to mark the children buried there.
"Once the markers were up, it was a 'wow, take a deep breath' moment," said Longman, the resident of the RIIS Commemorative Association, a non-profit working to protect the site of the cemetery where the school once operated, just outside Regina.
"To have the actual physical markers identifying each of the spots, it was absolutely emotional and it caught me off guard."
Thirty-eight metal markers, donated by Pasqua First Nation and Pro Metal Industries, were placed at the site by descendants of the children who were forced to attend the Regina Indian Industrial School.
The non-profit association has been using ground-penetrating radar to search for graves at the site since 2012. The human-made disturbances that were found, which could be an indication of graves, were finally marked this week.
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