Spade & the Grave

death and burial through an archaeological lens

Category Archives: Curious Canadian Cemeteries


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Billboard Monuments – Unique Gravestones at the Old Parish Burying Ground, Windsor, NS

If you read my last post, then you know there are some interesting things going on at the Old Parish Burying Ground in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Among the not so ideal stone repairs, there are some spectacular gravestones at that site and I highly recommend you check it out if you’re in the area! There is work by ‘JW’ who signed their initials bigger than the name of the person dedicated on the gravestones, and some earlier sandstone markers from the 18th century with classic memento mori imagery including skulls, bones, and hour glasses. Your time is fleeting, etc!

The monuments I want to write about today though are unlike anything I’d ever seen before! When we rolled up to the burial ground and saw them, my first thought was that we were witnessing the world’s weirdest gravestone repair, somehow broken off halfway up and mounted high over the grass on posts…but then we took a closer look…

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Curious Canadian Cemeteries: Old Cemetery, Port Kirwan, NL

It looks like I haven’t added to this series since 2021! I’m hoping to revive Curious Canadian Cemeteries and start writing about more sites across the country. Now that I’m on the Mainland, it will be easier to visit sites across the Maritimes, which should be very exciting.

Today’s cemetery is the Old Cemetery in Port Kirwan, on the Southern Shore of the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. I might be in Nova Scotia now, but we have a lot of sites in Newfoundland to cover still, especially with my guidebook to historic cemeteries in Eastern Newfoundland in the editing process right now! To get a taste of the guidebook, lets dive into a stunning site!

View over Admiral’s Cove from the burial ground (Lacy 2022)
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SBS: A Very Interesting Gravestone in Harbour Main, NL

I suppose I can’t start off every post by apologising for not writing forever, but it has been nearly 6 months so I suppose I’d better do it this time. Sorry, friends! Life has been going fast and I have a lot of projects on the go at the moment, both at work and on my own time, so writing a research blog for fun has been pushed to the side. However! I’m in the middle of writing my next book project, ‘A Graveyard Guide to Eastern Newfoundland’ (tentative title, does anyone have anything snappier??), and I got sucked into a research rabbit hole last night for several hours writing about a specific gravestone, so I wanted to share that excitement with everyone!

Harbour Main is a small outport community on the south coast of Conception Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador. It is well known for its gorgeous beach called ‘The Tide’, but it’s known mostly to me for being home to a small early cemetery that my friend Katie took me to see back in 2021. At this site, called The Old Irish Cemetery or the Old Irish Roman Catholic Cemetery, there are a number of field stones and other locally carved markers, but one in particular has stuck in my mind, because it’s inscribed in French.

View across the Old Irish Cemetery, Harbour Main in the fog (Lacy 2021).
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Catalogue of Octagonal Dead Houses in Ontario: 11th Structure Identified

It has been a while since we’ve gotten to update the Dead House Database (click here), but we have an exciting addition to make! My internet friend and journalist, Warren Schlote, messaged me recently with a drawing of an octagonal dead house posted to instagram by the ‘History Hound’ Richard MacLeod of Newmarket, Ontario. This drawing, done by his grandfather George W. Luesby Sr. (who ran a memorial making business), shows the dead house located in the Newmarket Cemetery, north of Toronto. In this post, we’ll discuss this site and the architect who designed the structure.

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Curious Canadian Cemeteries: Juggler’s Cove Burial Site, Bay Roberts, NL

Hello again readers, we are back today with another ‘Curious Canadian Cemeteries’! But first, an update:The last few weeks have been hectic; I’ve finished my PhD coursework already somehow, and after a little break, I have begun to work through readings in preparation for my comprehensive exams (also known as comps) this fall, which will involve writing two papers and then orally defending them. I’ve also been preparing for fieldwork and writing some reports for Black Cat which is very exciting, alongside preparing for my research fieldwork this summer as well. All of this involves extra hoops in these ‘uNpReCiDeNtEd TiMeS’ (anyone else sick of hearing that yet?), but projects are nearly set up and I am really looking forward to crawling out from behind my desk sometime soon!

With that, let’s get into today’s cemetery: the Juggler’s Cove Burial Site, Bay Roberts, NL!

View of the Juggler’s Cove burial site and ocean beyond (photos by author 2021).
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Curious Canadian Cemeteries: Castleton Cemetery, ON

Hello dear readers, it has been a while since I have written an entry for ‘Curious Canadian Cemeteries’! Today, I’d like to discuss the Castleton Cemetery in eastern Ontario, which I visited while on a camping weekend away. This site was opened in 1828and has been in continuous use for nearly 200 years. The site features many unique gravestones and examples of conservation and restoration that I’m excited to discuss with you all.

The site is located on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabewaki, and Mississauga Indigenous peoples (Native Lands 2020). All images in this post were taken by me on November 14th, 2020.

Sign at the entrance to the cemetery.
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Curious Canadian Cemeteries: Kilworth (Baker) Cemetery, Delaware Township, Middlesex County, ON

Today’s Curious Canadian Cemeteries is brought to you by being trapped inside during Week 3-to-4 of work-from-home-quarantine. What an interesting time we are living in…? Let me help distract you for a moment with this post about a small burial ground near London, ON, the Kilworth (Baker) Cemetery, Delaware Township, Middlesex County, Ontario.

I came across this site while heading out to a sugar bush (several weeks ago, when we were still able to go outside and do things! #socialdistancing). Despite living in Ontario since 2017, I hadn’t managed to go to a sugar bush before, so that in itself was exciting! Of course, I was more than happy to add a little burial ground visit into the trip when we spotted this one along the side of the road.

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View looking east from the entryway (photo by author 2020)

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Curious Canadian Cemeteries: Ellis Chapel, Puslinch Township, Wellington County, ON

It’s been a while for this series, hasn’t it? Today we will be exploring a historically very rural site, the Ellis Chapel, which is located in Puslinch Township, Wellington County, Ontario. The chapel can be accessed from the parking lot of the Cambridge On Route off the 401, west-bound, or from Ellis Road. The address of the site is: 6705 Ellis Rd, Cambridge, ON, N3C 2V4.

While this site is mostly known for its historic, coursed masonry chapel, constructed in 1861, the grounds include a small graveyard. Let’s take a closer look!

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Rear of the chapel, as seen from the south (photo by author 2020).

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Curious Canadian Cemeteries: South side / Old Non-Denominational Burial Ground, Ferryland, Newfoundland.

This site is near and dear to my little heart, perched on the hill west of the historic site of the Colony of Avalon at Ferryland, Newfoundland. It was one of the sites I explored during my MA thesis (see my publications for a link to the thesis, or wait a few months for the book!), and come to think of it I could very easily populate this series with all NL sites from my thesis research. Would anyone want to read that? Maybe?

Exposed to the often harsh and relentless winds of the North Atlantic ocean, anyone visiting graves in Ferryland in the 18th and 19th centuries would have had an unobstructed view of any passing ice bergs or whales!

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View of the Colony of Avalon from the burial ground (photo by author 2015)

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Curious Canadian Cemeteries: Fairview Cemetery, Oliver, British Columbia

This is a particularly special site I’d like to discuss with you today: The Fairview Cemetery, near Oliver, BC. Fairview was a gold mining town in the South Okanagan-Similkameen, born out of the gold rush in the area in the late 1880s. Legend has it that gold was first discovered by a one-armed man in the 1860s, but no Europeans arrived to exploit the areas for gold until the 1880s. It was located just west of the modern-day town of Oliver, and some older homes in Oliver are said to have been built out of wood salvaged from the would-be ghost town.

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View from the Fairview townsite over the South Okanagan

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