Dead Serious by Dan Kishkan

My family knows me well. They know me so well that while my father is working, two provinces over in British Columbia none the less, he actually stops to take photographs of cemeteries and brings back interesting things like this article:

Dead Serious by Dan Kishkan

It is a matter of local knowledge and not too much concern to anybody at all that there are two cemeteries in Nazko. One lies just north of the Reserve at Nazko in which the native people from the local area are buried. There is another eight or ten miles north of it where a number of long-ago non-Native residents have been parked.

 

It is the second cemetery that I'd like to talk about since it has been the cause of a few sleepless nights for some poor bureaucrat in Vancouver.

The cemetery is about two or three acres in size and is set on an east-facing slope overlooking the Nazko River. It sits in the middle of a grove of poplar trees and is haunted by grouse, rabbits, and the occasional groundhog. Moose, bear, and the odd deer wander by once in a while to check out the berry situation but other than that it is a pretty peaceful place.

There are somewhere between six and twelve permanent residents here but nobody really seems to know for sure. It's probably not all that important until the time comes to add someone, and that only seems to happen every ten years or so. Since nobody is sure how many residents there are, it stands to reason that nobody is exactly sure WHERE they are either. This could make digging a new grave an interesting experience.

The periodic bouts of insomnia suffered by this Vancouver person are due not only to the fact that he works for the government. That's bad enough, but this poor guy has to work for the Cemeteries Division, too. He went and sent us a form to fill out about the local graveyard and it ended up on my lap. I guess it is because I live a lived closer to the graveyard than most other folks; out here. I got a couple of neighbours to come over and help me figure it out and answer it. It wasn't that I thought that they knew any more than I did, but it seemed like there'd be safety in numbers.

Now cemeteries and government forms are not laughing matters, so we approached this with grave seriousness. The first question asked how many people were buried there. We replied that we weren't sure but there were no new holes, so nobody had left since the last time somebody had filled out one of these forms. We were going to add that nobody seemed to be dying to get in but thought that THAT might sort of upset this person.

The next question asked how we were managing the cemetery. We replied that we weren't managing it; the tenants were and they seemed to managing just fine.

The last part asked about finances. Now we thought about that pretty carefully because we figured the government people really worry about that sort of thing. We said that the tenants seemed, near as we could tell, to be pretty much financially secure. Secondly, we figured that, for anyone who wanted one, the hole would be free. They might want to pay someone to take the dirt out of it though. Lastly, we assured the Vancouver person that if anyone found anything valuable there, we'd be sure to let him know.

That seemed to cover it, so we sent it off. The form cam back about three weeks later. The gentleman in question had filled it out himself and included a copy and a note saying that this was how it must be done. We looked it over and agreed he'd done a fine job so we wrote that on the bottom and sent it back to him. That must have satisfied him because we never heard from him again.

I do wonder though, just what he'd think if someone decides to take up residence there in the next ten years and forgets to fill out one of his forms first. Were it me, I think I'd just lay back and enjoy the peace and quiet. And hope by doing so, I wouldn't be raising any hell.

Taken from "Porcupines, Politicians, and Plato." Dan Kishkan is a local resident working as a driver. Air Support Group Leader Ken Widdifield says he looks a lot like an out of costume Santa Claus.

Special: Levanto, Italy

Happy Thanksgiving to Canada and this is one of the many things in my life that I am thankful for:

Italy is fascinating country with a wealth of history and where there is history, there is the history of where and how the people interred their dead. The most famous methods of interment in Italy that may spring to mind are the underground burial grounds of the early Christians, the Roman burials and crypts along roadways into their cities, or the Etruscan cities of the dead.

And while I had the wonderful opportunity to visit a catacomb and the Capuchin friars in their crypt located under Santa Maria della Concezione the one place I wish I had been able to spend a great deal more time at is the cemetery of my aunt-in-law's hometown of Levanto.

Levanto is in the province of La Spezia in the Italian region Liguria, located about 60 km southeast of Genoa and about 20 km northwest of La Spezia. The town is on the coast at the end of a valley, thickly wooded with olive and pine trees which forms part of the coastal district known as the Comunità Montana della Riviera Spezzina, and part of its territory is included in the Cinque Terre National Park.

Our intention was to attend mass in the church above the cemetery, Cheisa dell Annunziata, so our tour through with my aunt, uncle, mother, a first cousin, and his first cousin, was much too brief for my tastes but I was introduced to interred members my aunt's family and had the basics of the cemetery's operations explained. After mass I disappeared back into the cemetery and my uncle and mother had to hunt me down again but I learned more from my uncle so I am quite pleased by my disappearing act.

Land is a premium in Italy so the primary interment method is stacked crypt interment with the option of a single or double niche, secondly is ground burial, and third is interment in family mausoleums. Resting places in Italian graveyards are not in perpetuity as they are in North America but rentals which pays for maintenance and electricity. Yes, you heard me, they are still paying electrical bills.

The individual interred leases the space for a period of time and then responsibility for payment falls to a family member. If payment is no longer being received, which happens especially when a family linage dies out, the individual interred is removed and the bones deposited elsewhere, the crypt cleaned, and the space rented out again.

This means that cemeteries in Italy while they do not have the maintenance and financial problems that plagues so many North American burial grounds, they do not become places where markers collect throughout the ages, and as people are interred where there is space family groupings do not develop like they do in rural cemeteries. And while the cemeteries are very old, one does not usually find burials of the same antiquity.

While crypt interment dominates, ground burial also exists as an option and they have a very lovely and fascinating markers for ground burials.

Mausoleums crowd into the space and while I am understand that even that space is 'rented' I am unsure (as is my uncle) what happens if a family linage with a mausoleum dies out and stops paying rent. After all, it is a little easier to empty out a crypt then remove one of these works of art:

My only regret is that I did not make more time to spend in the cemetery but I am very thankful for the exquisite view of an Italian graveyard.

Special: Stanley Mission, Holy Trinity Anglican Church

Saskatchewan has a very special church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Stanley Mission that is celebrating it's 150th anniversary this year. Not only is the church the oldest church west of the Red River, it is also the oldest wooden building in the province.

On June 13th, I was a part of a group that bused the four hours from the city of Prince Albert up north to attend convocation for members of the Stanley Mission congregation with Bishop Michael Hawkins presiding. It was an enjoyable, once in a life time opportunity, undertaken on a gorgeous sunny day.

The church is an absolute marvel and, being a taphophile, the churchyard was an area of extreme interested that I investigated after the church service (which was held mostly in English with all the hymns in Cree) and picnic lunch.

The churchyard was an absolute profusions of fenced plots, the odd ledger stone, and markers. Fences and markers all often brightly painted with an abundance of offerings for the recently deceased. While most of the more "recent" burials were marked with fenced plots, there were a few nameless fieldstones and crosses scattered throughout the wild array and not all of them were close to the church itself where the first burials occurred.

My one regret for the churchyard for future generations that don't have access to the oral traditions or other resources, is that many, many of the wooden marks are silent witnesses.

What I found interesting, besides the variety of markers, crosses, fieldstones, and headstones was that sometimes a grave would have more then one marker in conjunction with the plot fence and on occasion, ledger stone inside the plot fence. And on occasion, when a headstone was combined with a plot fence and cross one could not see the headstone clearly.

And like the church service, there were a smattering of headstones with the Cree syllabary, to be found in the churchyard. While I did not get the time I wished to devote to my tour, especially in the older section, I'm going to share a few pictures of the headstones written in Cree and the oldest marked grave that I found.

Now, does anyone know how to rotate photos in Picasa? (Found out how!)