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They didn't find 751 unmarked graves. Just as they didn't find 215 graves at Kamloops. These numbers are in all probability many multiples exaggerated over the

They didn't find 751 unmarked graves. Just as they didn't find 215 graves at Kamloops. These numbers are in all probability many multiples exaggerated over the reality. And the catch 22 is that any actual anthropological analysis is going to be restricted by the very group publishing the exaggerated numbers. So expect at the next location for it to be...why not 10,000? The methodology to derive these numbers borders on farcical. However we know that loads of children died at these facilities. Tragically. It has never been secret. It never had to be secret, sadly because native children were considered effectively expendable. That is the pox. The current culture of, effectively, horseshit isn't making it better.

soperj 5y ago
Sorry, you do have a current record of how many children died at that school? or no?
- defaultname 5y ago
  There are records from that school, yes. Are there enough to account for fictional numbers? No, why would there be? Do you understand how perilous counting "graves? with ground radar is? Note that the people who actually did the study are very careful with their language, noting that they found ground anomalies. The actual correlation with that and graves is incredibly loose.
  - brandon272 5y ago
    The "error rate" cited today by Cowessess First Nation and their partnered technical teams was 10% to 15%. The ground penetrating radar technology does not merely look for "ground anomalies", they work to specifically identify burial shafts, which tend to be rather distinctive. To say that they are merely counting any "anomaly" as a "fictional" grave is misrepresenting the work being done.
    - defaultname 5y ago
      It is positively impossible to cite such an error rate with any accuracy without doing an archeological analysis to determine the ground truth for a given site, which hasn't remotely been done (and in all likelihood would be blocked by the relevant players). Any claims to the contrary are simply a lie. Ground radar grave analysis has a significant degree of reading tea leaves. https://www.sensoft.ca/blog/cemetery-data-grave-locator-findar/ https://www.sensoft.ca/blog/cemetery-data-grave-locator-find... GPR is a great tool for law enforcement to find possible disturbed soil sites. Its use declines when you're doing mass surveys unless it is merely guiding a dig.
      - brandon272 5y ago
        > which hasn't remotely been done How do you know this? You either have specific knowledge of the scans and any associated archeological analysis done in BC and Sask, or you don't. What specific information do you have about the lack of analysis done in the Balcarres area? The Sensoft link has nothing to do with what has been done in BC nor Sask.
        defaultname 5y ago
        It is identical to the technique done at the school sites. Very low cost hardware is used to sweep an area and then read the tea leaves of electromagnetic response waves. It is enough of a red flag when the people doing the survey make a big deal about such obstacles as clearing brush and grass. > How do you know this? How do I know that they haven't done an archeological dig to validate the accuracy of their scans? Because they explicitly have said so. Indeed, they've said they may never, and I would wager will never. I said nothing about the "lack" of analysis, I'm just saying that you, like so many others, are incredibly accepting about information flowing through multiple parties, some of whom have a strong incentive to lean a certain way. The deficiencies of ground penetrating radar is very well known -- it's a very powerful tool, but read the words of the technicians who did it compared to the tribe spokespeople. They talk about anomalies, and how they have tried to be careful in the language they use (specifically noting that they can't say something is a grave, just that the patterns look similar to "a grave shaft"). How many grave locations do you think the team that did this survey have done? Have many tests of their claims? How has the rigor of their claims been validated?
  - munk-a 5y ago
    There are records from that school that the former administrators of that school are refusing to release. The paper trail regarding who they specifically are and how many they specifically are is being intentionally obscured. Additionally, access to that property is pretty heavily restricted. Edit: Please note I was specifically talking about the school in Kamloops and, actually, just yesterday a sharing agreement was reached as per my follow up comment below.
    - defaultname 5y ago
      Which property are you talking about? A number of these sites have been under aboriginal control for decades.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        I was talking about Kamloops specifically but actually, googling, it looks like the order that staffed the school just signed on to better record sharing[1] - this is a new story to me so there may be some problematic limitations on access I'm not aware of but it looks like things are at least moving in a good direction. I had been talking about the Sisters of St. Anne as detailed here[2] - but yea according to the above article this is no longer correct. 1. https://globalnews.ca/news/7975128/catholic-order-bc-residential-schools-agreement-record-sharing/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7975128/catholic-order-bc-residen... 2. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/catholic-order-staffed-kamloops-residential-school-refuses-share-records-1.6065322 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/catholic-ord...
mrow84 5y ago
Firstly, I can’t even begin to fathom how you could characterise people trying to determine what happened to their relatives, and where their remains might be, as a “culture of, effectively, horseshit”. Secondly, as far as I can tell you have made no substantive claims in this thread, your dismissals of the efforts in the article being backed solely by assertions, at a variety of levels of verbosity. If it is as important, as your many posts on the topic indicate you believe, to discredit the progress these people claim to have made, then I think you should try and provide some evidence to support your case.
- defaultname 5y ago
  Ah, the "you've engaged in this discussion, ergo that invalidates your engagement in this discussion" ruse. Always a go to for a boring troll. "I can’t even begin to fathom" While there is zero sincerity in your trolling comment, for anyone else involved it's important to view all players as intelligent, rational, negotiating, and ultimately selfish human beings. It's important not to treat aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures like mrow84 does (e.g. the "noble savage").
  - mrow84 5y ago
    > "you've engaged in this discussion, ergo that invalidates your engagement in this discussion" I can’t figure out which part of my comment could be misinterpreted as having said this - please point it out to me so I can clarify my intent. > “there is zero sincerity in your … comment” I was very sincere in both of my points, those being, in summary, that your comments in the thread I replied into seem both insensitive and unevidenced. > “ it's important to view all players as intelligent, rational, negotiating, and ultimately selfish human beings. It's important not to treat aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures like mrow84 does (e.g. the "noble savage").” My only mention of people’s actions other than your own was to say that those searching for their relatives’ remains should probably not be characterised as engaging in a culture of horseshit. You can think what you like, but equating that with “treat(ing) aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures” seems like a bit of a stretch. If you think about it you might realise that there is quite a bit of ground between the two. I feel compelled to note that your response contains no justification for your previous comments’ assertions. I am inclined to think that my original assessment was spot on.
refurb 5y ago
This isn’t an inaccurate description of the situation. What’s happening now is political. The discovery of the Kamloops graves have just elevated this topic in Canadians minds (and the world). The actual knowledge of Residential Schools is quite old. The First Nations are just being savvy about leveraging it for political power. And that’s not a criticism, that’s how things get done in a democracy - get the population on your side and politicians are powerless to say no.

soperj 5y ago

Sorry, you do have a current record of how many children died at that school? or no?

defaultname 5y ago
There are records from that school, yes. Are there enough to account for fictional numbers? No, why would there be? Do you understand how perilous counting "graves? with ground radar is? Note that the people who actually did the study are very careful with their language, noting that they found ground anomalies. The actual correlation with that and graves is incredibly loose.
- brandon272 5y ago
  The "error rate" cited today by Cowessess First Nation and their partnered technical teams was 10% to 15%. The ground penetrating radar technology does not merely look for "ground anomalies", they work to specifically identify burial shafts, which tend to be rather distinctive. To say that they are merely counting any "anomaly" as a "fictional" grave is misrepresenting the work being done.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    It is positively impossible to cite such an error rate with any accuracy without doing an archeological analysis to determine the ground truth for a given site, which hasn't remotely been done (and in all likelihood would be blocked by the relevant players). Any claims to the contrary are simply a lie. Ground radar grave analysis has a significant degree of reading tea leaves. https://www.sensoft.ca/blog/cemetery-data-grave-locator-findar/ https://www.sensoft.ca/blog/cemetery-data-grave-locator-find... GPR is a great tool for law enforcement to find possible disturbed soil sites. Its use declines when you're doing mass surveys unless it is merely guiding a dig.
    - brandon272 5y ago
      > which hasn't remotely been done How do you know this? You either have specific knowledge of the scans and any associated archeological analysis done in BC and Sask, or you don't. What specific information do you have about the lack of analysis done in the Balcarres area? The Sensoft link has nothing to do with what has been done in BC nor Sask.
      - defaultname 5y ago
        It is identical to the technique done at the school sites. Very low cost hardware is used to sweep an area and then read the tea leaves of electromagnetic response waves. It is enough of a red flag when the people doing the survey make a big deal about such obstacles as clearing brush and grass. > How do you know this? How do I know that they haven't done an archeological dig to validate the accuracy of their scans? Because they explicitly have said so. Indeed, they've said they may never, and I would wager will never. I said nothing about the "lack" of analysis, I'm just saying that you, like so many others, are incredibly accepting about information flowing through multiple parties, some of whom have a strong incentive to lean a certain way. The deficiencies of ground penetrating radar is very well known -- it's a very powerful tool, but read the words of the technicians who did it compared to the tribe spokespeople. They talk about anomalies, and how they have tried to be careful in the language they use (specifically noting that they can't say something is a grave, just that the patterns look similar to "a grave shaft"). How many grave locations do you think the team that did this survey have done? Have many tests of their claims? How has the rigor of their claims been validated?
- munk-a 5y ago
  There are records from that school that the former administrators of that school are refusing to release. The paper trail regarding who they specifically are and how many they specifically are is being intentionally obscured. Additionally, access to that property is pretty heavily restricted. Edit: Please note I was specifically talking about the school in Kamloops and, actually, just yesterday a sharing agreement was reached as per my follow up comment below.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    Which property are you talking about? A number of these sites have been under aboriginal control for decades.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I was talking about Kamloops specifically but actually, googling, it looks like the order that staffed the school just signed on to better record sharing[1] - this is a new story to me so there may be some problematic limitations on access I'm not aware of but it looks like things are at least moving in a good direction. I had been talking about the Sisters of St. Anne as detailed here[2] - but yea according to the above article this is no longer correct. 1. https://globalnews.ca/news/7975128/catholic-order-bc-residential-schools-agreement-record-sharing/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7975128/catholic-order-bc-residen... 2. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/catholic-order-staffed-kamloops-residential-school-refuses-share-records-1.6065322 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/catholic-ord...

mrow84 5y ago

Firstly, I can’t even begin to fathom how you could characterise people trying to determine what happened to their relatives, and where their remains might be, as a “culture of, effectively, horseshit”. Secondly, as far as I can tell you have made no substantive claims in this thread, your dismissals of the efforts in the article being backed solely by assertions, at a variety of levels of verbosity. If it is as important, as your many posts on the topic indicate you believe, to discredit the progress these people claim to have made, then I think you should try and provide some evidence to support your case.

defaultname 5y ago
Ah, the "you've engaged in this discussion, ergo that invalidates your engagement in this discussion" ruse. Always a go to for a boring troll. "I can’t even begin to fathom" While there is zero sincerity in your trolling comment, for anyone else involved it's important to view all players as intelligent, rational, negotiating, and ultimately selfish human beings. It's important not to treat aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures like mrow84 does (e.g. the "noble savage").
- mrow84 5y ago
  > "you've engaged in this discussion, ergo that invalidates your engagement in this discussion" I can’t figure out which part of my comment could be misinterpreted as having said this - please point it out to me so I can clarify my intent. > “there is zero sincerity in your … comment” I was very sincere in both of my points, those being, in summary, that your comments in the thread I replied into seem both insensitive and unevidenced. > “ it's important to view all players as intelligent, rational, negotiating, and ultimately selfish human beings. It's important not to treat aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures like mrow84 does (e.g. the "noble savage").” My only mention of people’s actions other than your own was to say that those searching for their relatives’ remains should probably not be characterised as engaging in a culture of horseshit. You can think what you like, but equating that with “treat(ing) aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures” seems like a bit of a stretch. If you think about it you might realise that there is quite a bit of ground between the two. I feel compelled to note that your response contains no justification for your previous comments’ assertions. I am inclined to think that my original assessment was spot on.

refurb 5y ago

This isn’t an inaccurate description of the situation. What’s happening now is political. The discovery of the Kamloops graves have just elevated this topic in Canadians minds (and the world). The actual knowledge of Residential Schools is quite old. The First Nations are just being savvy about leveraging it for political power. And that’s not a criticism, that’s how things get done in a democracy - get the population on your side and politicians are powerless to say no.