Last night the Weyburn Arts Council came together to pay respects and to honor the remains of the 215 Indigenous children that were discovered at the former Kamloops Residential School.

"We gathered at the walking gallery site to install a remembrance and an honorarium of the massive grave unearthing in Kamloops, BC," told Regan Lanning, Arts Curator for the City of Weyburn and the Weyburn Arts Council. "We fully recognize that this is not isolated. This is not the only discovery of its kind that's going to be made. There were 35 more unmarked graves found in Regina the other day as well."

The Kamloops residential school was one of more than 130 others like it. The schools were operated in Canada between 1874 and 1997.

Some of the remains are believed to be of children as young as three.

These government-run boarding schools were part of the policy to attempt to assimilate Indigenous children and destroy Indigenous cultures and languages.

With June being National Indigenous History Month in Canada the Arts Council has been sharing educational resources with hopes that we can all learn to be better allies going forward.

"We will be providing ways for us to stand in solidarity and to honor the true Canadian history," Lanning stated. "The last residential schools in Canada closed in 1997. I can't imagine what it's been like and what it continues to be like to be an Anishinaabe person in Saskatchewan and Canada. The Arts Council realizes that it is not our place to lead the discussion. It is our place to amplify the voices of others here and we hope to do so in the month of June."

Thousands of children died in residential schools and their bodies rarely returned home. Many were buried in neglected graves.

To this day there is no full picture of the number of children who died, the circumstances of their deaths, or where they are buried.

"I recently took a class on Indigenous history in Canada that was offered for free from the University of Alberta and it was a nine-week course," explained Lanning. "I came away from that class with a completely new understanding of what the truth in Canadian history is because most of us are not taught the truth. We were taught something that was heavily skewed and in no way representative of actual facts. The average residential school had a mortality rate of between 40 and 60 percent. The Indian Act is still a piece of legislation in Canada which is a horrible piece of legislation. So tune in to the Weyburn Arts Council this month because we will be sharing a lot about that kind of stuff. We're trying to stay in our lane because our voices are not the ones that need to be amplified right now. But we still want to provide some sort of testament to the fact that this happened."

The community walking gallery with 215 orange hearts to show a unified step towards reconciliation and building stronger relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples can be found along the fence of Dominic Place on 1st Avenue N, across the street from the hospital in Weyburn.

Feel free to follow the Weyburn Arts Council this month to learn more on their official Facebook page as well as their Instagram page.

Together we can make a positive effect on the future by learning from the mistakes of the past.