The Final Disposition - Mountain View Cemetery Event - April 24, 2010 Vancouver BC

Gravestone of Nellie LAY, died 5 February, 1920. Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, BC, Canada (JONES section /*/24/014/0005). Photograph by M. Diane Rogers, Fall 2009.

THE FINAL DISPOSITION - All Day Event

Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, BC.

April 24, 2010

De-Mystifying Death, Funerals, Cemeteries & Ceremonies

A forum designed to address practical and philosophical matters on dying and death. Discussion begins with hospice care and continues with the role of funeral homes and cemeteries. Alternative options such as green burial and the importance of ritual and ceremony will end the day.

Details at the Mountain View Cemetery website.
Free, but you must pre-register.

This full day event begins with a screening of “A Family Undertaking: Home Funerals in America”, and a session with Romayne Gallagher, Providence Health Care’s Division Head of Palliative Care and the Physician Program Director for Providence's Palliative Care Program.

Then in the afternoon there is a session with Barry Jeske, an independent funeral director and co-owner of Wiebe & Jeske Burial & Cremation Care Providers in Abbotsford, on the 'Funeral Home, the Funeral Director. What do they do?...Can someone “do it themselves” in British Columbia?'.

Then a session with Glen Hodges, Manager of Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery, on the many roles of a cemetery.

Later, a session with Stephen Olson, Executive Director of Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria on 'Green Burials and the story behind Canada’s first urban natural burial site in Victoria’s Royal Oak Burial Park.'

Finally Paula Jardine, Mountain View's own Artist in Residence, and Marina Szijarto, a contemporary rites of passage celebrant, artist & designer, discuss various cultural practices honouring the dead and the modern need to understand - and reclaim - the role of the artist in the sacred life of the community.

Free, but space is limited; pre-register.
Details & Registration Information at Mountain View's website.
Saturday, April 24, 2010, 10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Mountain View Cemetery, in the Celebration Hall & Courtyard, 5445 Fraser St, Vancouver, BC. (The Cemetery entrance is at 39th and Fraser.) Easily accessible by public transit.

This event includes tea and cookies, but please bring your own lunch and snacks.

Interesting note: Mountain View Cemetery is currently the only Canadian cemetery recognized by the Green Burial Council which has set the first standards for green burial services and providers and has four levels of certification.

Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver BC is recognized in the 4th level as a 'Hybrid Burial Ground'. "Hybrid Burial Grounds are conventional cemeteries offering the option for burial without the need for a vault (partial, inverted or otherwise), a vault lid, concrete box, slab or partitioned liner. Hybrid Burial Grounds shall not require the embalming of decedents and must allow for any kind of eco-friendly burial containers including shrouds."

For more about green burial in British Columbia, see my previous post on a Mountain View event last fall: Artists and the Green Funeral Movement - Dec 9 2009 .

Gravestone of Mike JURKOVIC, aged 20 (indexed at Mountain View as JURKOVITCH; death certificate indexed as JURHOVITCH), born in Jugoslavija, died 6 February 1935, at Tranquille, BC. Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, BC, Canada (Section JONES/*/13/002/0011). Also in plot - Phyllis Irene YURKOVICH, buried in 1994 and Robert YURKOVICH, buried in 1992.

Photograph by M. Diane Rogers, Fall 2009. (If anyone is willing and able to translate the inscriptions on this stone for me, please contact me at canadagenealogy@shaw.ca .)

Artists and the Green Funeral Movement - Dec 9 2009

Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, BC - Special Event

Artists and the Green Funeral Movement
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 from 7 - 9 pm
Mountain View's Celebration Hall and Courtyard.

Presented by Mountain View Cemetery and the Britannia Art Gallery.

Two artists, Paula Jardine, Mountain View Cemetery's Artist in Residence, and Joseph Montague, ceramicist and printmaker, will join Glen Hodges, Mountain View Cemetery's Manager, in a panel discussion.

This should be a very interesting evening.

Mountain View Cemetery
5445 Fraser St., Vancouver.
Telephone 604 - 325 - 2646
Mountain View Cemetery website.

In British Columbia since the 1950s, there has been a strong interest in alternative funeral and burial practices, for example, in cremation. It's estimated that 80% of British Columbia's dead are now cremated. While cremation is still often seen as a modern alternative, many now question its effect on our environment and are looking at 'green' burials. A recent article by Darcy Wintonyk for CTV British Columbia, "The Green Hereafter: Eco-burials gain popularity" summarizes some of the debate around this issue. (Published Monday, 7 September 2009 at ctvbc.ca. article link )

The Memorial Society of British Columbia, incorporated in 1956, is BC's only volunteer based memorial society - members have often been in the forefront of change in the province. One of the goals of the Memorial Society of BC now is "to promote environmentally sound arrangements for disposal of remains" and the Society was honoured with the Vancouver Island Human Rights Coalition 2008 Award for its work towards the development of the first green burial site in British Columbia - at Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria on Vancouver Island. There is more information about green burials on the Society's website.

Royal Oak Burial Park, open since 1923, since 2008 has offered "natural or green burials" in its 1/3 acre Woodland where there are only communal memorial stones. Ashes (cremains/cremated remains) may be scattered in the Woodlands area or Royal Oak offers "'hybrid’ natural burials" in regular burial lots where individualized markers may be placed. For more information about this, see the Royal Oak Burial Park website.

Only one other cemetery in Canada currently offers green burials, and a number of cemeteries in British Columbia require concrete vaults so that even 'hybrid' natural burials wouldn't be possible. Mountain View in Vancouver, however, does allow burials without concrete liners or vaults and as well allows for "multigenerational" use of a family grave or plots.

In addition, the new Celebration Hall and the newer outdoor features lend themselves to more personal commemorations at death as well as to the annual public memorial events created by Paula Jardine, Mountain View's Artist in Residence.

The cemetery's new buildings' display spaces are available to feature artists' funerary works. Joseph Montague has been involved in creating a number of funerary pieces, one of which was chosen for the 'Ashes to Art' exhibition in 2008.

See a catalogue of Joseph Montague's work on his website and see the Public Dreamer website for a look at some of Paula Jardine's work.