Mountain View Cemetery (Vancouver)

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Mountain View Cemetery
Mountain View Cemetery Building (144831783).jpg
Mountain View Cemetery's landscape operations building
Mountain View Cemetery (Vancouver)
Details
Established1886
Location
Country Canada
Coordinates 49°14′7.7″N123°5′33.5″W / 49.235472°N 123.092639°W / 49.235472; -123.092639
TypeNon-denominational
Owned byCity of Vancouver
Size0.43 square kilometres (110 acres)
No. of graves92,000
No. of interments145,000
Website Official website
Find a Grave Mountain View Cemetery

Mountain View Cemetery is the only cemetery in the City of Vancouver, British Columbia. Opened in 1886, it is located west of Fraser Street between 31st and 43rd Avenues. It is owned and operated by the City of Vancouver and occupies 0.43 square kilometres (110 acres) of land, containing more than 100,000 grave sites and over 150,000 interred remains. The first interment took place on February 26, 1887. The first interment was supposed to happen in January 1887 but poor weather, a new road, and a broken wagon wheel resulted in the intended first occupant being temporarily buried outside the cemetery. His body was relocated to inside the cemetery months later.

Contents

History

Only one existing cemetery in the vicinity, Fraser Cemetery in New Westminster (established in 1870), is older than Mountain View. Mountain View Cemetery opened in 1886, the same year that the city of Vancouver was incorporated; it supplanted older burial grounds in an area that was designated the city's first park, now called Stanley Park. Mountain View's original parcel of land (now known as the "Old Section") is bounded by Fraser Street on the east, 37th Avenue on the south, 33rd on the north, and by three remaining trees from what was once a row of tall Lawson Cypress trees on the west. Land to the north of this was purchased in 1901 for an expansion and became the "Horne I Addition" – named after the developer who sold the land.

Photo from Vancouver Mountainview cemetery showing mountains north of the city Mountainview cemetery north view.jpg
Photo from Vancouver Mountainview cemetery showing mountains north of the city

The Jones farm between 37th and 41st Avenues was added in 1910 as the Jones I and Jones II Additions, and in 1922 an additional piece was acquired west of the Horne I Addition. The "1919 Addition" is a tract bounded by 41st and 43rd Avenues, and contains many victims of the Spanish flu pandemic. The last area added is the Abray Park Addition on the western side, acquired in 1941 through a land swap with the Vancouver Park Board and named after a squatter, Nonus Abray, who had tended an orchard on the land and grazed his cattle there.

Burial sites historically were often grouped together along the lines of religion (e.g. Jewish), nationality (e.g. Chinese and Japanese), or organizational affiliation (e.g. Freemasons and Oddfellows). Other groupings are pauper grave sites and war veterans.

The New Chelsea Housing Society and the Department of Veterans' Affairs installed three granite stelai in the cemetery in 1983, dedicated to all Canadian military members who have died. [1] The cemetery has more than 12,000 Canadian military graves. [2] The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains the graves of 579 Commonwealth service personnel – 319 from World War I and 260 from World War II. The war graves of World War I are in a Soldiers' Plot; some of those of World War II are in a Veterans' Plot, and the others are scattered in other parts of the cemetery. Most of the airmen buried here died serving at the Royal Canadian Air Force base at Sea Island, and many of the sailors were from the HMCS Discovery naval station of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve. [3]

In 2005, Birmingham & Wood Architects were commissioned to design three buildings and collaborate in the design of landscape elements as part of an upgrade to Mountain View Cemetery. This included an administration building, a landscape maintenance facility, and a building for memorial services and associated functions. That "Celebration Hall" has also become a popular venue for cultural events, adding to the City's roster of performance spaces.

The 2005 upgrade also involved a number of other businesses: two firms of landscape architects, Lees + Associates Landscape Architects and Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg; BTY Group cost consultants; Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Limited heritage consultants; Bush Bohlman Consulting Engineers, The RADA Group, and Perez Engineering. The cemetery was officially rededicated July 2009.

Mountain View has been one of the few North American cemeteries allowing two members of a family to share the same grave. [4] As of January 1, 2020, City Council expanded this practice via a by-law allowing individuals to share their own or their deceased loved one's grave with non-family members, either by purchasing a single gravesite together or by allowing the cemetery to offer unused spaces to others; up to three individuals may share a grave. This option only applies to new graves, and is primarily designed to reduce the environmental footprint of burial. It is also less expensive, as the cost of the plot is divided among the individuals. Those opting for this arrangement are buried one above another in a single 4-by-8-foot (1.2 m × 2.4 m) plot, in a column to a depth of 9 feet (2.7 m), [4] and must consent to being interred without a traditional casket – instead using a more environmentally-sustainable option such as 'a shroud or biodegradable container'. [5]

Notable occupants

Disaster victims

Individuals

Monument on top of the gravestone for Malcolm Alexander MacLean, the first Mayor of Vancouver, at Mountain View Cemetery Monument top of the Gravestone of Malcom Alexander MacLean (1842-1895) First Mayor of the City of Vancouver (1886-1887).jpg
Monument on top of the gravestone for Malcolm Alexander MacLean, the first Mayor of Vancouver, at Mountain View Cemetery

The graveyard is used as a location set for the Underworld in ABC's Once Upon a Time .

References

  1. "Mountain View Cemetery memorial". National Inventory of Canadian Military Memorials. National Defence Canada. 2008-04-16. Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  2. "History". Mountain View Cemetery. City of Vancouver, Community Services. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-03-21.
  3. CWGC Cemetery Report.
  4. 1 2 Griffin, Kevin (23 October 2019). "Three strangers can now occupy same grave at Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery". The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  5. Pauls, Karen (2 November 2019). "Would you share a grave? Vancouver cemetery has ground-breaking solution to graveyard real estate crunch: Vancouver bylaw changes mean strangers can share portion of rights to a gravesite". CBC News. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  6. "Burials at Mountain View". Mountain View Cemetery. City of Vancouver, Community Services. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-03-21.
  7. "Interesting Citizens". Mountain View Cemetery. City of Vancouver, Community Services. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-03-21.