Residential school cemetery in Regina gets provincial heritage designation
REGINA — A residential school cemetery has become the first in Saskatchewan to be designated as a provincial heritage site.
Culture Minister Ken Cheveldayoff formally recognized the cemetery on the edge of Regina on Wednesday and said the children buried there will not be forgotten.
“With its new provincial heritage status, the Regina Indian Industrial School cemetery will be protected and respected for generations to come,” Cheveldayoff said in a ceremony next to the site, which is surrounded by a peeling white rail fence.
There’s just one headstone — for the children of the school’s first principal — in the 680-square-metre cemetery. However, it’s believed dozens of Indigenous children lie there in unmarked graves.