Beauval Indian Residential School

During the night of September 19–20, 1927 the fire alarm rang while thirty-seven students and eight Grey Nuns were sleeping.[4] "The fire started at the centre of the building close to the furnaces. It spread into the hallway and into the boys (sic) dormitory and closed the outside exits. The children tried to save themselves through an inside staircase but were stopped by the flames. The whole boys (sic) dormitory was in flames. The older girls were heroic in guiding the younger girls to safety. Father Francois Gagnon almost suffocated. In the blink of an eye the building was totally engulfed in flames. The furnaces had been checked just three days previously. Sister Lea (Elise Bellerose) and nineteen boys, from the ages of 7 to 12, died." wrote the principal of the school Father Mederic Adam. (translation) "The burnt remains of the twenty victims were buried in two caskets." wrote Father Penard.(translation)[5]

The following list of boys who died in the fire was taken from the memorial monument.

"In the course of last winter an epidemic of influenza and measles ravaged the north-west part of the Vicariate. It first started in Beauval and struck almost all the population. Our Indian school and the rectory were immediately converted into hospitals and despite the efforts of the religious personnel there were 60 victims, 20 at the school and more than 40 among the families of the Mission. With an equal violence the epidemic arrived rapidly to our other Missions of the north particularly Île-à-la-Crosse, Buffalo River (Dillon) and Portage La Loche. In each of these Missions the death toll was around 50 people." wrote Bishop Lajeunesse in 1937 (translation).[6]