Redress and Reconciliation: The Legacy of Residential Schools

Yesterday I attended a panel at Algoma University focused on residential school and reconciliation.  The panel, “Redress & Reconciliation in the face of Post-Apology Revelations”, was standing room only and featured four residential school survivors, two inter-generational survivors, and historian Ian Mosby.  

The panel participants were invited to speak about their thoughts on Harper's apology to residential school survivors, reconciliation, and relations following the apology.  The first two survivors to speak, Mary Hill and Fran Fletcher Luther, both emphasized that they thought Harper didn't truly believe the words of the apology, that the words he spoke didn't come from the heart, and that he didn't write the apology.  Mary Hill also said she felt disappointed that the apology didn't acknowledge those survivors who have already passed on. 

The two inter-generational survivors spoke of the long term impacts of residential schools on communities and the need to acknowledge the on-going damage.  They pointed to the ongoing legislation that is marginalizing indigenous people and then need for a true apology to be followed up with actions.  Mitch Case highlighted the need for truth.  He argued that reconciliation cannot begin until the truth is out there and accepted. 

The inter-generational impacts of the residential school system have been devastating and is something that needs to be acknowledged and discussed more.  The inclusion of two inter-generational survivors on the panel helped highlight the need for more open discussions and brought attention to current legislation that is marginalizing indigenous communities.

One of the most moving parts of the panel was listening to Mike Cachagee speak about his experience at residential school, his work with the government leading up the residential school settlement agreement, and the residential schools survivor movement.  Mike spoke about starving at residential school and the physical and emotional pain caused by starvation. 

Mike also told an anecdote in which he was questioned about why he was publicly speaking against the residential school settlement agreement.  He asked government officials if they had children and if so what price could they put on their love for their child.  Predictably, the individuals said you couldn't put a price on love.  Mike response was 'But you have.  You paid me $3,000 a year for my attendance at residential school.  $3,000 a year for being deprived of my parents love, for being taken away from my family.' 

I've heard Mike tell this experience to other groups.  But every time this example is gut wrenching.  The compensation of the residential school settlement agreement did not fix things and can in no way make up for what happened in residential schools.  Mike's pointed words highlight an underlying dissatisfaction many have with the apology, the settlement agreement, and current discussions of reconciliation. 

The panel closed with the resilient words "They can't take our spirit.  They couldn't take our souls."  I have worked closely with the survivors who were on this panel for the past five years.  I have heard them speak about their residential school experiences countless times.  But each time they speak I learn something new and I am reminded of the importance of truth telling and the need for us to listen to each other.  Reconciliation takes two sides.

Ongoing Challenges: Paper Writing and Committee Work

During the month of December I am participating in #reverb14 as a means of getting my writing habits back on track. I will be altering the prompts as needed to fit within the scope of this blog. Prompt: Challenges.  What did you wrestle with in 2014?  What did you learn?  What challenges do you foresee in 2015?

This past year I wrestled with how to turn down great projects that I simply didn't have time to do justice to. In 2015 I foresee a few new challenges including:

• Finalizing a paper on sports images and residential school archives.  This was one of the few projects I took on part way through 2014, as it draws directly on a lot of the work I've done with the Rev Father William Maurice fonds in the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre.  
• I'm continuing to be part of a couple of public history committees and part of a conference organizing committee. There will be lots of planning and implementation work in the next year relating to those commitments.
• I will be returning to work in June 2015 after taking seven months off as maternity leave.  This will be another huge life/work adjustment. 

Everyday Heroes

During the month of December I am participating in #reverb14 as a means of getting my writing habits back on track. I will be altering the prompts as needed to fit within the scope of this blog. Today's prompt: Hero: Who was your hero this year? Tell us why. What makes a hero in your eyes?

 The residential school survivors I have had the opportunity to work with over the past few years are a constant source of inspiration.  Many of these individuals are in their 60s, 70s, or 80s yet they continue to be advocates for awareness around the legacy of residential schools.

They were founding members of the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association and have promoted education and healing around residential schools since the mid 1970s. Many of these elders routinely speak about their residential school experience to indigenous and non indigenous audiences.  For students of all ages this can be a powerful learning experience and is often the thing that makes them realize the lasting impact of residential schools.

These kind and generous people are heroes in my mind. They have worked tirelessly for years to raise awareness about residential schools and many have worked to promote healing within their own communities. I only hope I have nearly as much energy when I'm their age. 

Orange Shirt Day

September 30, 2014 is the second annual Orange Shirt Day.  The day grew out of a residential school commemoration event held in Williams, Lake BC in Spring 2013.  During this event Phyllis (Jack) Webstad, a Survivor of the St. Joseph Mission Residential School described her experience of arriving at the residential school and having an orange shirt that was bought for her by her grandmother taken away from her.

Speaking about her experience Phyllis said that "the colour orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn't matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing.  All of us little children were crying and no one cared."  Phyllis complete story can be viewed here.

As a result of Phyllis' experience and the 2013 commemoration event Orange Shirt Day was created as a way to inspire conversation around residential schools and reconciliation.  Similar to the anti-bullying pink shirt campaigns, the Orange Shirt Day/Every Child Matters campaign encourages people to wear orange and begin discussing the issues behind the cause.  Many school boards across Canada are using this as an opportunity to begin discussions of residential schools in their classrooms.  More information about Orange Shirt Day can be found on their website and facebook page.

Bringing the Legacy of Residential Schools into the Classroom

My latest post, "Bringing the Legacy of Residential Schools into the Classroom" can be seen over on Active History.  The post focuses on resources that can help teachers integrate residential schools into their lessons. I look a handful of education tools which can be accessed digitally and are good starting points for teaching the history of residential schools.

Archives Association of Ontario Conference

Next week I will be attending the 2014 Archives Association of Ontario conference.  This year's conference theme is "Party With Your Archives" with many of the presentations focusing on the use of archival collections in community events, commemoration projects, and the creation of collective memory.

  On Friday May 30th I will be presenting "Marginalized Voices: Residential School Archives and Community Collaboration" as part of the Community Collaboration panel.  My presentation is focused on the use of the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre and associated archives in commemoration events and the development of a community archive.

The complete conference program can be seen here.

Social Justice in the Archives

The 2013 Fall/Winter issue of The American Archivist opens with two articles focusing on social justice within the archival profession.  The first "A Critique of Social Justice as an Archival Imperative: What Is It We're Doing That's All That Important" by Mark A. Greene.  This piece challenges the idea that "to be an ethical archivists, one must pursue 'social justice' in all phases of archival practice" (p. 303) Green maintains that the archivists role is primarily to serve it's patrons and that "It isn't the job of the archivist to lead the social justice crusade.  But it is his or her job to pursue, acquire, and make available the records that will, among other things, allow social justice crusaders to show that injustice has occurred" (p. 328).

The second article, "Archivists and Social Responsibility: A Response to Mark Greene", is a rebuttal by Randall C. Jimerson.  This piece focuses on Green's criticisms of Jimerson's previous work and clarifies Jimerson's stance on social action, politicizing the archival profession and societal roles.

Both articles are well worth reading and provide an interesting look into the social implications of archival practice.  Greene and Jimerson both highlight the importance of archives to public and private institutions and the impact archives can have on society and the historical record. 

I work in an archive that has a long history of social justice advocacy or at the very least is entangled in a social justice issue.  The legacy of residential schools is something that is still being addressed and struggled with in Canada.  During the implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) the archives I work in were used frequently by Survivors to legitimate their claims and challenge legal decisions. 

The very nature of the records in an archives which focuses on Residential Schools is challenging.  Most records and photographs relating to residential schools were created and kept by school staff or government agencies.  But it is the former students who are pictured, written about and who find importance in these records today.  This particular archive is governed by a Survivor based organization and a large portion of resources are dedicated to serving survivors and their descendents.

But, archives staff have also worked closely with religious organizations and groups who were involved in the operation of residential schools.  These working relationships and partnerships have resulted in the many of donations that Survivors have subsequently found so invaluable.  It is only through maintaining a balanced cross-cultural approach that the development of collections and programming in the archives has been so successful.

Archives have the potential to deeply impact peoples lives and archivists play a crucial role in how the historical record is preserved and accessed.

Children to Children Art Installation Opening

Part of the Project of Heart Commemorating the Children of Future Generations Initiative the Ontario based commemoration project "Children to Children" will open at the 180 Projects Gallery in Sault Ste Marie on December 7th at 7pm. 

Project of Heart is a hands on artistic and history project aiming to commemorate the children who died while at residential school, teach the general public about residential schools, and promote social action.  Project of Heart has resulted in thousands of school children learning about residential schools, speaking with and learning from survivors of residential schools, and creating commemorative titles.

These commemorative titles have become the basis for commemoration projects across the country.  For example, in Vancouver a Tsleil-Waututh racing canoe was unveiled that was made from over 9000 Project of Heart tiles decorated by students from over 250 schools in British Columbia.  

The "Children to Children" opening will feature an installation piece created by Shingwauk Residential School Survivor and Elder Shirley Horn, inter-generational survivor Shelly Fletcher, artist Zenith-Lillie Eakett and Dayna Rainville. The installation will use thousands of titles create by students from across Ontario, in commemoration of the legacy of residential schools.

Journey Women: An Art Exhibit of Aboriginal Women's Healing Experiences

The Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre is currently hosting an exhibit of artwork created by women from  Minwaashin Lodge-Aboriginal Women's Support Centre. The exhibit features ‘body-map’ images created by seven women in a three day arts based workshop on the healing experiences of Aboriginal Women.

This workshop was part of a collaborative research initiative between Minwaashin Lodge and Concordia University. The workshop was facilitated by art therapist Lucy Lu and  Felice Yuen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences of Concordia University.  The goal of the project was to gain an understanding of the conditions that contribute or challenge Aboriginal women in their process of healing from violence or the impacts of violence. 

The exhibit is open from now until the end of November and additional details about the exhibit and related events can be seen here.

Serving Time at the Mush Hole

The Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre at Algoma University is currently hosing the exhibit "Serving Time at The Mush Hole: Visual Testimony of R. G. Miller-Lahiaaks (Mohawk, Six Nations) — Selected works from Mush Hole Remembered (2008)."

In the words of artist R.G. Miller, this exhibit represents "a combination of vague, mundane memories of years at the school, and flashes of horror experienced there. They are the strongest memories I could approach without descending into a place I would not be able to emerge from."

More details including the opening hours of the exhibit can be seen here.

Five Years Later: Looking Back at the Residential School Apology

June 11th marked the fifth anniversary of the Canadian Government's formal Residential School apology.  This apology took place in the House of Commons on June 11, 2008 and included a number of commitments toward healing and reconciliation and redressing the historical wrongs of Residential Schools.  The full text of the apology can be seen here.

What progress has been made since 2008? The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement that began in 2007 has played out across Canada.  Deadlines for the Common Experience Payment and Independent Assessment Process have passed and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is nearing the deadline of it's mandate.  Despite these deadlines having passed or approaching the TRC is still struggling to gather all relevant information relating to Residential Schools, there are a number of Residential School Survivors did not participate in the CEP or IAP processes, and students who attended day schools have yet to been formally addressed by the Canadian government.

Since 2008, funding to numerous Aboriginal organizations have been cut.  Organizations that were impacted by these cuts include: the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, National Aboriginal Health Organization, the Aboriginal Portal, the health budget of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), health funding to the Native Women's Association of Canada, and many other organizations.

On June 3rd Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada announced a new slate of funding changes and cuts to 43 Aboriginal organizations. These new cuts impacts the AFN, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the Métis National Council and ITK.

The loss of funding to health programs and continued under funding of educational programs in remote communities is a stark contrast to the promises made in the 2008 Apology.  Promises of building relationships and supporting communities are good in theory, but actions speak louder that words. Added to the historic wrongs of Residential Schools, a history of colonialism and broken promises, the recent actions of the government have the potential to have impacts of ongoing efforts of healing and reconciliation.

Red Memory: Residential Schools Exhibit

Tree of emotions

One of the prominent parts of The Learning Place at the TRC National Event in Quebec was the Red Memory exhibit created by the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission.  The exhibit aims to tell the true history of the Indian Residential Schools that existed in Quebec and to provide an understanding of the damages done by Residential Schools.

The exhibit was setup in a conference room of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel where the TRC event was taking place.  The conference room was transformed with visual, audio, and textual material to create an  immersive experience which emphasized the lived experience of Residential Schools. 

The layout and mediums used in this exhibit were powerful.  Video and audio were used to complement physical displays and text panels.  The sound of a drum beating could be heard throughout sections of the exhibit and Survivor testimony was playing on a prominent screen. My only complaint about the enhanced features of this exhibit would be that some of the text was displayed in a scrolling red text on a narrow digital screens.  This text was really interesting and the red colour created a contrast against the other portions of the exhibit.  However I found that the scrolling nature of it made it challenging to read.

On of the most powerful sections of the exhibit is a 'tree of emotions" that was situated near the entrance to the exhibit.  The leaves on the tree were coloured tags which each had an emotion written on it, these emotions reflected feelings of Survivors of Residential Schools. Some positive words such as hope, love, and peace are written in blue.  These blue tags are contrasted with the red words which highlight the violence and cultural harm of residential schools.

Overall the exhibit does a good job of capturing many of the elements associated with the Residential School legacy.  The exhibit is divided into four sections: Separation, Isolation, Homecoming, and Memories. The text and display content for each of these sections is drawn from Survivors and reflects the ongoing impact of Residential Schools.  Red Memory does an excellent job of highlighting the fact that the impact of Residential Schools didn't end when the children returned home and that many people are still being impacted by the Residential School legacy.

I walked through the exhibit a couple of times throughout the TRC Event, each time there were a number of people taking in the exhibit in silent contemplation.  Everyone I spoke to about the exhibit thought it was well done. A few health support providers did mention that the exhibit had been triggering to some Survivors and that they had decided to establish a health support station inside the exhibit room to ensure that there was easy access to emotional and cultural support for anyone triggered. The inclusion of health support is crucial to this type of exhibit which deals with such an emotional topic.

The Red Memory exhibit was designed as a traveling exhibit for Quebec and upcoming tour plans have this exhibit being hosted at the Native Museum of Mashteuiatsh next. 

National Archives at NCPH

The final session I attended on Thursday at NCPH was "Competing Narratives, Competing Needs: The Roles and Responsibilities of a National Archive and its Audiences."  The panel was comprised of staff from Library and Archives Canada (LAC) including: Rebecca Giesbrecht, Jenna Murdock Smith, Jennifer Wilhelm and Katherine Comber as facilitator. 

Giesbrecht began the session by comparing display practices and national concern surrounding Canada's founding documents with that of the United States.  I wrote about my views on this drastic national difference in 2012 when I made a visit to the NARA in Washington, D.C.  Giesbrecht's presentation provided a framework of national identity to examine the treatment of 'founding documents' by archival bodies and provided insight into LAC's past and current preservation practices for founding documents.

Following Giesbrecht, Wilhelm discussed the role documents held at LAC have played in relation to the Indian Residential Schools legacy.  Wilhelm also spent considerable time explaining the creation bias and archival bias that impacts the IRS documents held by LAC.  How LAC describes IRS photographs and documents is linked to archival standards, which often results in titles of records reflecting the Euro-centric views of their creators.  Wilhelm also mentioned Project Naming a LAC program designed to identify Inuit in photographs of Canada's north and LAC's participation in past Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) national events.

The panel concluded with Jenna Murdock Smith looking at the changing archival policies surrounding documents relating to the Japanese Canadian Redress Secretariat.  The Japanese Canadian Redress was the first instance of an individual compensation process being created in Canada to address historical wrongs.  Smith's presentation focused on the archival apprasial of case files relating to the Redress.  Early on these case files were considered not of archival value for LAC and slated for destruction, even though these case files contained massive amounts of individual and potentially relevant information.  Smith described the challenges of attempting to find a new home for these records and the ultimate the decision to keep the case files because of a technology failure that lost related information.

This was an interesting panel.  It was great to see staff from LAC engaging with the public history community and sharing their experiences documenting Canada's 'official' past. 

Project of Heart: Hands on History

Comparable to the (official denial) trade value in progress sewing actions I wrote about last week, Project of Heart is a commemoration project which combines an artistic activity with history education.  Project of Heart aims to educate Canadians about the lasting impact of the Indian Residential School system.  The project places an emphasis remembering those students who passed away while at Residential School.

Participants in Project of Heart learn about Residential Schools and are then asked to decorate a small wooden title to represent the death of one child at Residential School.  The education component of Project of Heart focuses on learning through oral history and experiential learning.  Residential Schools Survivors are invited by school and community groups to tell their personal experiences, and give voice to language and traditions that were suppressed by Residential Schools.  The Project of Heart website also offers a great list of educational resources and discussion questions for those facilitating education activities.

Project of Heart also requests that each group focus on a specific Residential School.  Focusing on a particular school and on the students who attended that specific school held make the topic more tangible and less abstract.  The name of the school studied is written on the back of each title decorated by participants.

The artistic activity of the project, decorating a small wooden tile using sharpie markers, emphasizes creating something to remember and commemorate a child who died at Residential School.  Allowing students to express what they have learned through a creative medium makes this project appealing to many educators and the hands on component helps make the history lesson increasingly memorable. 

Interactive Canadian History: Sewing Responses to the Past

This week the archive I work at hosted a sewing action as part of the (official denial) trade value in progress project.   This project engages people in discussion and reflection relating to reconciliation, truth telling, and Canada's history of colonialism and Residential Schools.  This interactive art project stimulates discussion about Canada's history while allowing participants to engage in a tactile activity.

The work initiated by Leah Dector and curated by Jamie Isaac, features a 12x14 feet composite of Hudson Bay blankets sewn together, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's 2009 statement that "we also have no history of Colonialism" sewn at the center of the blankets.

At exhibitions and public showings of the work, the general public is invited to write down their responses to the piece in an accompanying book.  These responses are then taken to sewing actions, where participants can choose any response and hand-sew it onto the blanket.

The interactive component of this project means that the visual appearance of the Hudson Bay blankets are constantly evolving based on what participants decide to sew into the blanket. The project reflects the thoughts and decisions of the sewing participants and the visitors who wrote down their responses to the work.  The interactive component of this project resonated with me in  terms of educational programming and public history. 

The individuals who participated in the sewing action this week talked a lot about history based topics while sewing their chosen words into the blanket.  Much of the discussion revolved around Residential Schools, land rights, the history of the Hudson Bay Company, the continued marginalization of Indigenous people, and a variety of other historically informed topics.

The sewing action actively engaged participants in an interactive art project, Canadian history and engaging discussions about Indigenous rights in Canada.  Learning in a less structured environment combined with a tactile activity has the potential to be much more memorable than a traditional lecture about Canadian history or presentation about the Hudson Bay Company.  It's great to see creative projects engaging people with the past.

Digitization and Holistic Approaches to Data Sets

Over the past two years I have spent a lot of time working with Residential School quarterly return reports.  These reports were completed four times a year by School principals and contain the names, admission date, ages and discharge information of the students who were in attendance at the school.  The set of returns we have is far from complete but they do act as one of the best documents for providing proof that an individual attended IRS.

The majority of the work I do with quarterly returns is dictated by reference requests from former students, staff, families, and communities looking to find information about a particular individual.  While processing one of these typical typical reference requests, I typically flip through a binder that contains all the quarterly returns for a school and pick out any references to a specific individual.  I would then scan or photocopy the relevant pages and send them to the interested individual.  Though this process involves the quarterly returns it never led to me considering the returns as a whole. 

A recent project I've worked on helped me take a more holistic approach to looking at some quarterly returns.  The returns are one of the most frequently accessed documents in the archive I work at and staff spend a considerable amount of time manually searching returns for relevant information.  The majority of the quarterly returns are handwritten and many of them are poor quality copies.

The handwritten nature of the returns means that using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to make the documents full text searchable isn't possible.  But given the importance of these records and the frequency of access, creating a searchable transcribed version of the quarterly returns was seen as valuable. Currently, we have only undertaken making searchable the records for the schools that are accessed most frequently.

 Though time consuming, this task has not only increased access to the quarterly returns but provided some insight about the schools as a whole.  For example, the returns often indicate if a student is in the hospital or infirmary.  The process of transcribing and making these records has made it easier to track outbreaks of illness within the schools.  For example, at the schools in Spanish Ontario there were 28 boys sick in December 1943, which is almost 20% of the entire male student population.

Similarly, looking at the returns more holistically has also highlighted education trends within the school.  Often a trade or industry of study is listed for the boys school.  The most common trades include : farming, diary, carpentry, poultry, cooking, tailor and shoemaker.  It is now possible to group data by trade and determine which trades were more popular at particular periods. 

The transcription process has also illuminated the fallibility of these records.  One of the most common mistakes in the returns is misspelling of family names.  The transcription process highlighted how depending on who filed the return the spelling of a name could change (eg. Corbiere or Corbier or Coribiere).

Overall, the process of being able to access information and process requests more efficiently is always a great thing in my mind.  More importantly, this experience has highlighted the potential of records to provide contextual information when looked at holistically and contextually.  Considering the difficulties (eg. missing records) that many people working with residential school records come across, it is important to use the information that does exist to its fullest potential. 

Library and Archives Canada has compiled a guide to conducting Residential School research that might be useful to anyone beginning to work with IRS documents.

Archaeology and Residential Schools

This week two archaeologists stopped by the archive I work at.  These particular archaeologists have in recent years been focusing on Residential Schools.  Prior to their visit I had not considered the tremendous value that archaeology can add to ongoing research relating to Residential Schools.   The majority of my work focus on textual records, photographs, artifacts, and oral history -- leaving me far away from archaeology field work.  Material culture and archeology speaks to areas of the history of Residential Schools that is not captured in historical documents.

Many of the Residential Schools that existed in Canada are no longer standing and in many cases the original land which the schools resided on has been re-purposed or left abandoned.  Unless a monument or other marker has been erected it is often impossible to tell Residential School sites apart from the landscape. Through archaeology and the use of historical records it is possible to identify where buildings were, uses of the land, and the location of burial grounds that were established as part of the schools. 

Overall, the visit reminded me of the importance of interdisciplinary work and the value of reaching out beyond one's immediate field.  The video below, "Encountering Modernity - The Piikani Historical Archaeology Project"does an excellent job of describing some of the efforts related to First Nations and Residential School archaeology projects. 

Other Duties as Assigned: Cemetery Maintenance

Part of my job this week included a number of 'other duties as assigned' tasks.  One of such tasks included assisting with cleanup of the Residential School cemetery which is on site where I work. Since I like gardening this was actually a nice afternoon break one day.

This particular cemetery was in use from 1876 to around 1970 and has staff, students, and members of the Anglican Church buried there.  Following the closure of the Residential School on the site, the cemetery fell into a state of disrepair and neglect.  Today the cemetery is well looked after, however years of poor maintenance and weather eliminated all the wooden markers in the cemetery and many of the stone tombstones are in rough shape. 

Overgrown weeds, mossy broken tombstones, missing grave markers, and unknown boundaries are characteristics of cemeteries throughout Canada.  Upkeep of no longer used or unregistered cemeteries have a tendency to become neglected over time. Additionally, the very nature of grave markers and tombstones - outdoors and exposed to the elements - make them susceptible to premature damage and deterioration.

Some cemeteries are well documented and the loss of a marker or the fading of a stone inscription isn't a complete loss of burial information as the plots have been documented by the cemetery.  However, even when burial plots are well documented often the actual inscriptions on tombstones aren't formally recorded.  Similarly if a municipality doesn't (or didn't) keep accurate records of burial plots if a wooden marker rots or the inscription on a tombstone fades, the information on who was buried in that location is lost.

For example, the Residential School cemetery where I work no longer has any of the wooden crosses which marked the majority of the student graves.  The loss of markers was a huge loss as no formal records noting burials or plot locations have been located for this cemetery.  As with many Residential School cemeteries, the number of students buried and the names of all the students buried in the cemetery are unknown. 

Cemeteries and grave markers can provide an abundance of genealogy and historical information, but only if they are well documented or preserved. So what about those crumbling tombstones and loss of information through deterioration? There are a variety of different preservation tools that can be used by municipalities and other interest groups to preserve the historical information found in cemeteries.

• Document existing gravestones, especially those which are made of wood or other elements which are very susceptible to rot and other forms of rapid deterioration. Gravestones and inscriptions can be documented by using photography and written documentation. 
• Organize and keep accurate burial records.  This might be employing an archivist to organize existing records relating to the cemetery.  An archivist can help provide order and structure to boxes of unused records.  This organization will help make the records more accessible and searchable for researchers. 
• It is possible to clean stone tombstones. This is typically undertaken to remove moss, dirt, and other surface growth.  However, I would recommend looking into a professional providing this service (or at very least providing training on how to go about the cleaning), as it is possible to damage the stones if you use abrasive products or tools. 

If you are interested in searching out ancestors or information about a particular cemetery in Ontario, you might want to begin by using Ontario Genealogical Society's Ontario Cemetery Ancestor Search.  A list of the cemeteries which have been indexed by the OGS and are included in the Ancestor Search can be also be found online.