The other Oblate school, St. Joseph's at Dunbow, Alberta, also struggled along, albeit minus the most spectacular of the problems Battleford had. Because the first principal, the famous Father Albert Lacombe, initially 'could only get a few orphans,' Dunbow had had to take in 'boys fifteen to eighteen years of age.' The result was numerous runaways, and during the rebellion in 1885 near total desertion of the school.

    The rest of the industrial and boarding schools that were established between 1883 and the turn of the century came into existence both in accordance with federal government policy and as a result of the continuing initiatives of the various church bodies. Some of them were the new, elaborate industrial schools; others merely boarding schools. Some, like the Catholics' institution at Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island, were pre-existing schools that obtained government support as 'industrial' schools. Metlakatla began to be funded as an industrial school in 1895. Yet others such as the Anglican at Alert Bay; the Roman Catholic at Kuper Island, at Kamloops, and in the Kootenays; and the Methodists' Coqualeetza Institute near Chilliwack were new institutions. (Williams Lake reopened as an industrial school receiving government grants in 1891, too.) On the prairies, Church Missionary Society principal E.F. Wilson of Sault Ste. Marie and his son branched out, setting up another industrial school at Elkhorn, Manitoba, with the financial assistance of Ottawa from 1888 onward. The Roman Catholics expanded little in industrial schooling on the prairies, although they did succeed in attracting government financing for their St. Boniface institution in 1891. The Methodists did better, opening Red Deer Industrial School in 1893. The Presbyterians started Regina Industrial School in 1895.