According to the University of Regina, the Marieval residential school operated from 1899 to 1997 in the Qu'Appelle Valley. Marieval was run by the Roman Catholic Church until it handed over administration to the federal government in 1968.
Cowessess First Nation took over its operations in 1981. The residential school was later demolished in 1999 and replaced with a day school.
For survivors of Canada’s residential school system, the discovery in Cowessess, while not unexpected, renewed feelings of grief and trauma.
"Just feeling like the wind was knocked out of me again," Lou-Ann Neel, a residential school survivor, told CTV's Your Morning on Thursday.