After more than 70 years of unanswered questions, baby Maxime Ottawa is finally coming home.
The Atikamekw baby was sent to hospital alone in 1954 and died without his family ever getting to say goodbye.
Now, more than a year after the Quebec boy’s remains were exhumed in Quebec City, his family has confirmation that he was found, ending a decades-long search to bring him home.
“I can finally share news our family has been waiting for for so long: on Oct. 26, 2026, baby Maxime will finally return home to Manawan to be with his mother, his father and his brothers and sisters,” said family member Manon Ottawa.
“Even though we cannot erase the past, today we can offer him the dignity, respect and rightful place he deserves among his own people.”
“After years of tireless work, we finally have an answer today, and we are also looking forward to bringing baby Maxime home,” added Jacqueline Flamand-Ottawa.
Maxime was six months old when he was evacuated from Manawan for medical treatment in 1954. He was later transferred to a hospital in Quebec City, where he died on Oct. 5, 1954, after 43 days of hospitalization.
His parents were not allowed to accompany him and did not learn of his death until two years later. They were never able to hold a funeral or bury him according to their traditions.
The family discovered decades later that Maxime had been buried in a common grave at Saint-Charles Cemetery in Quebec City.
“This lack of information concerning the fate of a loved one, most often a child, is a reality that many Indigenous families have faced,” said Olivia Malenfant, a lawyer representing the family.
On Oct. 1, 2025, the Quebec Superior Court authorized his exhumation to allow forensic testing to confirm his identity and, if successful, permit his reburial in Manawan. The court’s decision marked a first for an exhumation of this kind from a common grave in Quebec.
Exhumation work took place from Oct. 14 to 19, 2025. The process was complicated by the presence of several other Indigenous people buried in the same and neighbouring plots.
One body was recovered and transferred to Quebec’s Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale for identification testing. The family says it received confirmation late last month that the remains were those of Maxime.
“Baby Maxime, my uncle, was not just a name in a case file,” said Manon. “He was a child in our family. A child who deserved to be found and to come home.”
Relatives can now begin planning a burial ceremony in Manawan that respects the child’s memory and the community’s traditions.
“I always saw my grandmother looking out the window toward the lake, with a lost look on her face,” said Manon. “But today, I understand what she was thinking about. She was still waiting for her child. I wish so much that she could have been here to experience this moment.
“To my father, I would like to say that I found baby Maxime, and that he will be coming home, that the mission has been accomplished.”
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