Secret Desecration

Markham, Ontario. Secret Desecration Approximately 43°50’25.43″N 79°13’54.55″W, facing west, circa November 30, 2005

Near this place where workers lay sod on top of the snow on Staines Road in Markham, a crime that Ipperwash Inquiry Commissioner The Honourable Sidney B. Linden describes as “A particularly significant instance of the desecration of an Aboriginal burial site”, occurred. Bones fragments—from what an archeological investigation determined to be an aboriginal ossuary dating to between A.D. 1030 and 1270, are believed to have been secretly run through a wood chipper by workers trying to avoid construction delays that would normally be triggered by such a discovery—were found in a pile of soil fill and garbage at an undisclosed location near here. The police investigated but no charges were laid.