In a barren field of sagebrush alongside a road through the Osoyoos Indian Band, Chief Clarence Louie stands atop a concrete pad and surveys the rubble in front of him.

This used to be the front entrance to St. Gregory's, the simple wooden church that hosted countless community celebrations, dinners and religious services, on the reserve just north of the Canada-U.S. border in central B.C.

The church had stood for more than one hundred years as a symbol of the Catholic faith, but on June 21, 2021, someone burned it to the ground.

Louie recalled being forced to go to the church as a child to learn the word of God. He didn't like it.

Small white church with a tall steeple.
St. Gregory's Church, which stood on the Osoyoos Indian Band just north of the Canada-U.S. border since it was built in 1910, was completely destroyed in a June 2021 fire that police deemed suspicious. (Osoyoos Indian Band)
"We were heathens, right?" he said from the church steps. "We were savages. We had to come in here and have the white man save our souls. That's what we were taught."

While he doesn't hide his contempt for Catholicism, he's angry that someone torched St. Gregory's, which was the second church that burned that night. Hours earlier, someone also set fire to the Sacred Heart Church on the Penticton Indian Band about 40 kilometres north of Osoyoos.

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"I was upset that some rez punks did arson," he told CBC News, pointing the finger directly at local youth from area reserves, including his own.

"I don't think white people came here and burned this down."

No one has ever been charged in either the Osoyoos or Penticton fires.

WATCH | Examining what's behind a surge in church fires across Canada:

Why dozens of churches in Canada have been torched and burned
2 days ago
Duration8:46
A CBC News review has revealed that dozens of churches in Canada have burned down since May 2021, and dozens more have been vandalized. CBC’s Terry Reith investigates what’s behind the dramatic rise and why so many of the arson cases remain unsolved.
Other communities in Western Canada, including some First Nations, also have been impacted by the fires. CBC News has examined 33 Canadian churches that burned to the ground since May 2021. Just two were ruled accidental.

Investigators have determined that 24 were deliberately set while others are still under investigation. Some researchers and community leaders suggest Canada's colonial history and recent discoveries of potential burial sites at former residential schools may have lit the fuse.

A revelation in Kamloops
In May 2021, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation near Kamloops, B.C., released a statement revealing that researchers found 215 anomalies in the ground outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Leaders said they believed they were unmarked graves belonging to Indigenous children forced to attend the school.

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Louie grew up at a time when others from his reserve were taken to the school, which was run by the Catholic Church until 1969. It's estimated more than 150,000 children were sent to the schools in Canada from the 1830s until the last school closed in 1997.

In addition to the schools, Catholic missionaries in the early 1900s built churches like St. Gregory's on reserves throughout Canada, and priests and nuns were sent to teach the Catholic faith to Indigenous people.

While many became devoted followers, today there are deep divisions regarding the role the church played in setting up residential schools.

A stone monument stands before a green field. A black plaque dedicates the monument to survivors of the Kamloops Residential School.
A monument stands on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, B.C., on May 27, 2021. The Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation released a report later that summer noting that about 200 potential burial sites had been found during a search of the site using ground-penetrating radar. (Andrew Snucins/The Canadian Press)
At the outset of the church fires, many Indigenous and political leaders were quick to blame unresolved anger over the situation.

"To burn things down is not our way," Perry Bellegarde said in July 2021. At the time, he was the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. "Our way is to build relationships and come together."

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That month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also commented on the fires, saying, "The destruction of places of worship is unacceptable and it must stop."

But it hasn't stopped.

A rash of fires in churches
In the weeks after the announcement in Kamloops, 11 churches in western Canada were burned to the ground in cases determined to be arson by investigators.

CBC News examined police and court records along with media reports and found 33 fires that destroyed churches in Canada from May 2021 until December 2023.

Just two of those fires were found to be accidental. Investigators confirmed 24 fires were deliberately set, while the others were either deemed suspicious or are still under investigation.


Fourteen fires took place on reserves and First Nations and 13 were in small or rural towns.

About half the fires CBC News examined involved Catholic churches, but there were fires at churches for other denominations, including evangelical Christian, United and Anglican.

Most of the fires remain unsolved. Of the 33 major church fires since 2021, just nine have led to arrests. In those where charges have been laid, police say no clear motive has been established.