Mistake which has been made in the recent exhumation at Woodstock
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By Nina Green
As the email below to the Chief Coroner and Chief Forensic Pathologist of Ontario explains, the recent exhumation of the remains of a 27-year-old status Indian male who was buried in 1966 at St Mary's Cemetery in Woodstock, Ontario, is problematic.
The remains are alleged to be those of Percy Onabigon, son of Duncan Onabigon and Mary Chapais of Long Lake #58 First Nation, who was allegedly 'removed from St. Joseph's by a federal Indian agent' in 1946, and subsequently sent to various Ontario hospitals.
However historical records indicate otherwise. An Ontario death certificate states that Duncan and Mary Nabigon's son Percy died as a 3-month-old infant at St Joseph's Hospital in Port Arthur in 1938, and is buried at Long Lake, and the admission, discharge and attendance records for St Joseph Indian Residential School make no mention of a student named Percy Nabigon ever having been enrolled there.
Letter to the Chief Coroner and Chief Forensic Pathologist of Ontario
Dear Dr Dirk Huyer and Dr Michael Sven Pollanen,
I'm writing to you as Ontario's Chief Coroner and Chief Forensic Pathologist concerning the recent exhumation at Woodstock of what are alleged to be the remains of Claire Onagibon's uncle, Percy Onabigon, which have been sent to Ontario's Forensic Pathology Service in Toronto.
The details of the background to the exhumation are contained in a CBC article published 3 May 2025:
His family was never told where [Percy] was sent or what became of him after he was removed from St. Joseph's by a federal Indian agent.
After years of research and advocacy, Percy's niece, Claire Onabigon, found him: in a cemetery in Woodstock, Ont., more than 1,200 kilometers from home. He died at age 27 of tuberculosis at the Ontario Hospital.
On Thursday — the 59th anniversary of Percy's death — seven family members and a pipe carrier travelled to the southern Ontario city to exhume his remains.
Relatives watch as the remains of Percy Onabigon are exhumed from St. Mary's Cemetery in Woodstock, Ont. They are being sent to Ontario’s Forensic Pathology Service in Toronto before being reburied in Long Lake #58 First Nation. (Sarah Law/CBC)
But it wasn't easy; the family appealed to both the provincial and federal governments to cover the roughly $45,000 cost.
Because Percy died as an adult, not a child, the family was told the federal government would not provide coverage under the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund.
After CBC News shared the Onabigons' story in September, the Ontario government offered to foot the bill. The money comes from the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs and First Nations Economic Reconciliation's Residential School Unit.
"This is not just about bringing Percy home — it is about repatriating an Ancestor, honouring the lives of all those affected by the Residential School system, and moving forward together with respect, dignity, and justice," ministry spokesperson Meaghan Evans told CBC News in an email.
For the Onabigons, though, it wasn't about the money; it was about the acknowledgement that Percy should never have been taken in the first place.
The historical records indicate that a serious mistake has been made.
The attached Ontario death certificate states that Percy Nabigon died at the age of 3 months at St Joseph's hospital in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) and that he was buried at Long Lake (presumably in his home reserve cemetery there).
The 1938 death certificate states that Percy's parents were Duncan Nabigon and Marion Champion (an error for Mary Ann Chapais).
Percy's parents Duncan Nabigon and Mary Anne Chapais are the parents of Percy's sister and brothers, Bertha, Kenneth and George, in the attached applications for admission to St Joseph's Indian Residential School in 1941 and 1943).
Bertha is the mother of Claire Onabigon, who claims that the person who died in 1966 and whose remains were recently exhumed at Woodstock and sent to the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service was her uncle Percy. Obviously that cannot be the case since the death certificate establishes that Claire's uncle Percy died as a 3-month-old infant in 1938, and was buried at Long Lake.
Moreover there is no mention of Percy Nabigon in the St Joseph's Indian Residential School admission and discharge forms, or in the school's attendance records which were sent to the federal government each quarter (available here). It is thus impossible that Percy was 'removed from St Joseph's by a federal Indian Agent' since he was never there.
It thus appears that the wrong person has been exhumed.
Could you please send me a copy of the documents on which the exhumation was based, i.e. the documents which purportedly establish that the remains which were exhumed were those of Claire Onabigon's uncle Percy. It seems clear that there must have been an error in the interpretation of those documents since Claire Onabigon's uncle Percy died as an infant in 1938, and was never at St Joseph's Indian Residential School, and thus cannot be the 27-year-old whose remains were recently exhumed at Woodstock.
I've copied the Prime Minister and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations on this email as the person whose remains were exhumed at Woodstock was apparently a 27-year-old status Indian male for whose hospital care the federal government was responsible at the time of his death, and the federal government will have the relevant records which will establish that the exhumed 27-year-old male was not Claire Onabigon's uncle Percy.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Nina Green
Thanks for reading. For more on this author, read Letter to NCTR Executive Director
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You should be the consultant for investigating these "irregularities", Nina. Honest research and reporting are obviously in short supply.
Love those articles, Nina. It's amazing how few are afraid to tell the Emperor that he has no clothes. But then again, he seems to be unwilling to listen.