St. Paul’s residential school opened on Big Island in the Belly River in 1889, south of Cardston. A 1908 federal government report described the St. Paul’s school as “quite unfit for the purpose it is being used for.” A 1930 report said the boys were being worked like “slaves” while in 1948 the local Indian Superintendent said that he could not take runaways back to the school since they were better off at home. In 1969 the federal government took over the administration of the school and in 1975 the residence was closed and the school transferred to the local First Nation.
