Search dog handler and trainer Mary-Ann Warren with her two human remains detection dogs shown in her live video presentation today. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

The healing journey

Delmas Residential School search for children’s graves a long process

Mar 28, 2024 | 5:00 PM

The search for missing children and burial grounds at the former Delmas Residential School site is a long, arduous process, but one that can serve in the healing for residential school survivors, and possibly help provide some closure as well.

That was the message conveyed on Thursday, during the Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs Inc. (BATC) and the Acahkos Awasisak–Star Children project conference in North Battleford. Human remains search dog handler and trainer Mary-Ann Warren, shared her knowledge about how the human remains search process using specially trained dogs is conducted.

She was recently in the Battlefords area with her search dogs, as requested by Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs Inc. (BATC)-Acahkos Awasisak – Star Children project, to undertake a historical search of human remains at the Delmas site. These trained dogs can detect the presence of historical remains by even the faintest of scents.

In January, these cadaver dogs specially trained to detect historic human remains identified signs that human remains exist at the site of the former Delmas Residential School.

The investigation was undertaken in the fall of 2023.

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The search was conducted by the Search and Rescue Dog Association of Alberta (SARDAA), a volunteer, non-profit group of dogs, handlers and field techs, which Warren volunteers with.

Cadaver dogs were used because the ground at the specific location wasn’t suitable for Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) which was used elsewhere.

The first search was conducted around the site of the former residential school in the Delmas bush.

Warren said she will bring an additional dog team with her when she returns when the weather warms up, to further search the area, near the river this time.

Warren noted that SAR Dog Teams can’t be 100 per cent accurate, as there are many variables that can impact a search – including the environmental conditions, like changes in the weather, changes to the environment itself, as well as conditions related to the ageing of the remains over many years.

“There are so many things that can happen over the years that we have to take into consideration…,” she said. “We do our best.”

Warren added that the ageing time also poses limitations.

“[The search process] is not as cut and dry as what one might hope,” she said.

The dogs serve as another layer in the comprehensive search in and around the Delmas residential school site and surrounding area.

A ground penetrating radar search was used in other areas of the search around the site of the former Delmas school.

Delano Mike, coordinator with the Acahkos Awasisak–Star Children project, said organizers are hoping there will be more funding for the whole Delmas search initiative in the upcoming federal budget.

“It’s far from being over,” he told battlefordsNOW. “That’s why we are hoping that we can possibly get an extension to continue the project, because we are far from completing this project.”

With this week’s conference focusing on the impact of Indian Residential Schools coming to a close today, Mike hopes it provided an opportunity for some healing.

“We hope that all those who attended this gathering here this year took something from it, in terms of education and awareness, and most of all importantly is their own personal health,” he said. “That’s what I hope that our survivors can take from this this year. We owe it to our survivors, and the ones that did not make it home to make sure that this project continues.”

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsNOW