We are so proud of reporter James Hopkin, who is a finalist for the 2022 Canadian Online Publishing Awards in two categories for his writing on residential schools. Read his feature on Emma, young girl who never made it home from residential school, here:
For well over a century, no one in her family lineage knew what led to the mysterious disappearance of a little girl named Emma from Garden River, an Anishinaabe community situated just east of Sault Ste. Marie.
“Every day that I walked, I saw two eagles,” she says. “It just struck me: I have to find Emma. I’ve got to find Emma.” That nugget of information led Hermiston to a secretary at St. Andrew’s Catholic Cemetery. During their conversation, Hermiston not only discovered that Emma was interred somewhere in that cemetery — after her body had been stored in a vault over the winter due to the ground being frozen — but that the little girl was buried in what Hermiston describes as an unmarked “mass grave” containing the remains of other children.
In mid-June of last year, Boissoneau decided to pass along Emma’s name to someone else: his friend, Tanya Talaga, an acclaimed writer and storyteller with roots in Ontario’s Fort William First Nation. Talaga worked for The Toronto Star for more than 20 years before becoming president and chief executive officer of Makwa Creative, a production company versed in Indigenous storytelling. Her great-grandmother, Liz Gauthier, was a residential school survivor.
Talaga didn’t realize it right away, but Boissoneau and Hermiston were telling her about the same lost child. From there, everything started to come together. After connecting with Thompson, Hermiston would eventually obtain more historic records and documents needed to piece together Emma’s long-lost story. Knowing what we now know about the horrors of Canada’s residential school system, the records are difficult to read—yet another reminder of the pain and suffering endured by so many Indigenous children forced to attend those institutions.
Another letter from the Indian agent indicates that the funeral and burial expenses were sent to Indian Affairs to be paid for. The letter also lists an $8 expenditure incurred at St. Andrew’s Cemetery. During the 1960s, Emma’s sister would often travel to Thunder Bay to pick up Hermiston’s sister, who attended school there. Each time Nolan went, she would spend time searching for the sister who never made it home. “She would go to the church there and the people who ran the school, but no one had any answers for her,” Hermiston says. “It was like Emma just disappeared.”
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