A Virtual Visit to Mountain View Cemetery

I remember, years ago, a mayor of North Cowichan saying, “People come first.”

Meaning, human wants and needs trump environmental values every time.

As you may have seen in the news, and last week’s Chronicle, North Cowichan Municipality is looking to expand Mountain View Cemetery into an adjoining forest of mature fir and maple trees—proving that even dead people come first.

As should surprise no one, I’m a dedicated fan of cemeteries, even having written the history of the Valley’s public graveyards, Tales the Tombstones Tell. Which inspired me to check North Cowichan’s website and to go along to the open house, last Thursday afternoon.

There weren’t many there besides Municipal staff, most of them immediate neighbours on Drinkwater Road who are concerned for the loss of their forested backyards. There’s still room for burials in the Valley’s only non-denominational cemetery, and more and more people are choosing to be cremated, which allows for up to six headstones in place of a single traditional grave.

But, for all our New Age environmental enlightenment, people come first and you can bet your life that the cemetery’s expansion, to be done over a period of years, whatever the cost to trees and wildlife, is a go...

Next week, the stories of Mountain View Cemetery and of some of its more fascinating occupants.

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