B.C. First Nation signs historic agreement to guide potential residential school excavation

Chief Willie Sellars stood at a threshold. The Williams Lake First Nation had just signed a memorandum of understanding with the British Columbia government and the RCMP—the first agreement of its kind in the province—to establish a careful, legally binding process for what might come next: the excavation of St. Joseph's Mission Residential School and the recovery of children believed buried there.

No decision had been made to dig. That was important to say clearly. But the framework was now in place, ready to guide the work if it happened. Sellars described signing the document as an emotional day, the culmination of years of conversations with elders and survivors from his community. "I feel accomplished that progress is being made," he said. The agreement would help the First Nation move toward what he called the truth—toward righting historical wrongs, toward healing not just for Williams Lake but for all the communities whose children had been taken to the school.

The St. Joseph's site sits about 500 kilometres northwest of Vancouver. It operated as a residential school until 1981. Children from more than forty communities were sent there. In the 1980s and 1990s, three high-profile criminal convictions emerged from the school for physical and sexual assault. But the deeper accounting came much later. In January 2022, the Williams Lake First Nation announced that ground-penetrating radar had identified 93 potential burial sites around the former school. Last year, another 66 potential sites were detected. The investigation had also drawn on archival research and interviews with survivors. The evidence pointed to one conclusion: Indigenous children had died at St. Joseph's and were likely interred on or near the grounds.

The memorandum itself was signed by six parties: the Williams Lake First Nation, the British Columbia Coroners Service, the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, the RCMP, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, and the archeology branch of the Ministry of Forests. A senior leadership team from each would serve in an advisory capacity. The document committed all parties to building a shared understanding of their roles and to developing the protocols that would govern any recovery work—protocols designed to be culturally sensitive, respectful, and careful. Sellars emphasized that the First Nation would continue to lead the process. The agreement, he said, "provides the clarity we need in relation to future investigative activities and ensures the careful, culturally sensitive and respectful treatment of any human remains that might be recovered."

Murray Rankin, the minister of Indigenous relations and reconciliation, framed the memorandum as a step toward what he called truth, healing, and justice. It reflected a collaborative approach, he said, one that acknowledged the residential school system's documented harms across generations. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report had found that at least 4,100 children died while attending residential schools across Canada. St. Joseph's was one institution among many, but it was the one Williams Lake First Nation was now positioned to investigate fully.

Yet Sellars was candid about the complexity ahead. He said he felt optimistic, but the path forward was not without friction. The team had continued conversations about how to proceed, about what the next steps would be. Those conversations, he acknowledged, had brought mixed responses—from neighbouring communities, from survivors, from members of his own council. Some supported moving forward with excavation; others had reservations. The work of investigation, it seemed, would require not just technical expertise and legal frameworks but also the difficult work of building consensus within and across communities still processing the trauma of the school.

Last year, the Williams Lake First Nation had purchased the St. Joseph's site from a private owner for 1.2 million dollars, with help from the B.C. government. The purchase was meant to ensure the integrity of the investigation and to honour both the children who had disappeared and those who had survived. Looking ahead, Sellars spoke of transforming the site into a place of healing—a space to honour ancestors and survivors, to break what he called generational cycles, to help communities heal. The memorandum was a tool, a necessary structure. But the real work—the excavation, the identification, the repatriation, the healing—still lay ahead, contingent on decisions not yet made, shaped by conversations still unfolding.