At least 45 died in Yukon residential schools, says researcher

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission researcher says at least 45 students died while attending residential schools in the Yukon.

Across the North, researcher Alex Maass said she has accounted for 300 deaths.

Maass, a research manager with the Missing Children Project, said after researching cemetery records and wading through a million documents they can now prove one out of every 50 children forced to attend Indian Residential Schools never made it home. However, she says the records are still incomplete and in some cases they've been able to show they are not accurate.

She said the official records don't account for all of the children's bodies in the schools cemeteries, and added the problem is evident at Northern schools like the one at Fort Providence, N.W.T.

"There's a very large cemetery associated with the Fort Providence school that is estimated to have close to 300 individuals in itmost of them are children," she said.

"It doesn't match up. What we see on the ground doesn't match with the documentation."

Maass said most of the children died from disease, however she said there were also many accidental deaths attributed to drownings, fires or other accidents.