Kuper Island School on Penelakut Island was operated by the Catholic Church until 1969. Indigenous children from up and down the B.C. coast were sent there, and its remote locations earned it the nickname of “Canada’s Alcatraz”. Archaeological research there began in 2014 as part of the TRC’s work on missing children.

After the TRC reports were completed, a team at the University of British Columbia continued the work of collecting records, interviewing people who live in the village and searching the grounds of the former school using ground-penetrating radar.