Why do I need to look for records in so many places?
First Nations, Métis, and Inuit patients moved through interconnected webs of government and private bureaucracy, services, and organizations. Each different organization, government ministry or branch, church, or municipal service kept their own records about patients. This means that there is no single source for all the records relating to Indigenous people who died in Indian hospitals and sanatoriums in Manitoba. Records about each patient are often scattered through the archival records held by several different organizations in different locations. The research to find a missing patient is complex and will likely take you to records held by the federal, provincial, and possibly even municipal governments. It may take you to private archives, including archives held by faith communities and businesses.
In Manitoba, the federal government paid for tuberculosis treatment for First Nations and Inuit patients beginning in the 1930s, but this treatment was often delivered and recorded by the provincial government or even by a local (municipal) hospital. In 1939, this system changed when the federal government via Indian Health Services contracted the Sanatorium Board of Manitoba (SBM) to provide a wide range of medical services to First Nations and Inuit, including operating the Clearwater Lake, Dynevor, and Brandon Indian hospitals.
Record of Services from a parish church. Records of Service record the daily activities of a church, including services, Bible readings, and other activities. The Record of Services often list the name of the deceased for funeral services, and sometimes the cause of death as well.
Patients, including Métis patients, were also treated at the St. Boniface Sanatorium, operated by the Grey Nuns, the Ninette Sanatorium, the Fort Churchill Military Hospital, Winnipeg municipal hospitals, or smaller federally-run Indian hospitals at Peguis First Nation (Fisher River Indian Hospital), Fort Alexander, and Norway House. In some cases, including in the case of childbirth, sanatorium patients might be moved to a local hospital for treatment including St. Anthony’s Hospital in The Pas, and the Brandon and Selkirk General Hospitals.
Two separate systems of death registration operated for First Nations patients who were in treaty and Inuit patients. Deaths of these patients could be registered federally with Indian Health Services but were often recorded by the Government of Manitoba’s Vital Statistics department. Patients were buried in municipal, faith-based and on-reserve cemeteries cemeteries, and their deaths and burials could be recorded in provincial burial permits, funeral home records, and faith-based sacramental registers.
As you read through this Guide, you will see the wide range of different archives that may hold one or even a few pieces of the puzzle you are trying to fit together. The records in some of these archives may be restricted by various federal and provincial privacy and personal health information legislation, and you may need to work with the archives to see if you can gain access to some records.