Fort Providence (Aug 22/03) - After 60 years, the graves of some Fort Providence ancestors have been discovered.

Ground-penetrating radar was used to confirm the old cemetery site exists in the open fields, close to where Sacred Heart residential school used to stand. Dr. Brian Moorman, associate professor of geophysics at the University of Calgary, led the probe Aug. 10-13. Territorial archaeologist Tom Andrews was also on hand.

"We found some number of graves, I can't tell you how many yet because they're still crunching the data," Andrews said Wednesday, adding that the exact number of graves may not be discernable.

Community member Albert Lafferty, who initiated the old cemetery research project in 1992, said he's grateful that the location has now been confirmed.

"I always thought it's important that we recognize that area," Lafferty said. "It's important. It's part of our history, too."

The burials at the old cemetery took place from 1868 to 1929. After several missionaries had been exhumed and reburied at Fort Providence's existing cemetery, the area was ploughed over by the Roman Catholic church in the 1930s and used as a potato field, according to Lafferty.

"Back then the church was almost like a government authority. Nobody challenged their decision," he explained. "I don't know what their reasoning was."

Elder Jean LeMouel marked the area he believed to be the old cemetery site in the 1970s. Andrews said LeMouel did a "remarkable job" based simply on memory.

A monument to the dead was erected in the area several years ago and is currently being restored in Edmonton, Lafferty noted. Now that the old cemetery is better defined, a fence will likely be erected around it, he said.

Through Lafferty and Eddie Sanderson's research in 1992 -- comprising oral history and records from the Roman Catholic Diocesan Centre in Yellowknife -- they compiled a list of nearly 300 graves that were unaccounted for. Lafferty said he believes some of them must lie within the old cemetery side. Others may be buried at the existing cemetery but their markers have been lost or removed. Still others may be buried at various traditional sites, he suggested.