Gone and forgotten: The history buried in Nova Scotia's abandoned cemeteries
The only mark of "Baby's" time on Earth is a tombstone with a rabbit engraving, slowly being swallowed by the wilds of Nova Scotia over more than a century.
Even that may have been lost had Steve Skafte not scoured the unruly fields of Plympton, Digby County, to find the Hardscratch burial ground guarded behind a rusty gate.
He cut through the thicket of pine trees, swept aside the blanket of deadfall and brushed off the moss shrouding the rickety cairn.
After clearing the area for future visitors, Skafte posted photos and GPS co-ordinates of the graves to Abandoned Cemeteries of Nova Scotia, a Facebook group devoted to chronicling orphaned burial grounds.
The gone and forgotten die twice, said Skafte -- once in life, then again in memory. In that sense, he said, the project's mission is to resurrect these crumbling monuments to Nova Scotia's history.
"It's like a first step to make sure it doesn't disappear," said Skafte, a writer and photographer based in Bridgetown. "We'll make sure that if somebody comes along years later, and they're all in worse state than I even found them, they'll never be lost again."
In the past year, Abandoned Cemeteries of Nova Scotia has charted nearly 100 burial sites scattered across the province, from the far reaches of Cape Breton to Skafte's stomping grounds in Annapolis Valley, which has so many plots he refers to it as "the dead centre."
A cemetery is considered "abandoned" if it doesn't receive regular maintenance, but the overgrowth on many sites is so impenetrable that Skafte presumes they haven't been touched in decades.
The graveyards tend to be tucked away in tangled woods, on precarious hilltops or along the edges of untended fields, he said. Some tombstones date back to the 18th century, and many have shattered or sunk into the soil as the coffins beneath them rotted and collapsed.
Mass rural-to-urban migration has depopulated much of Nova Scotia's countryside, reducing some communities to ghost towns and leaving the departed without nearby descendants to maintain their final resting places.
But as genealogy has emerged as a popular online pastime, many of Abandoned Cemeteries of Nova Scotia's roughly 6,300 members are looking to reclaim these ancestral ties.
Ashley Conrad of Cole Harbour joined the group in hopes of learning more about her family history, and was surprised to discover that some of her forebears were buried in a wooded plot she'd driven past hundreds of times.
Conrad followed a secluded path to Lawlors Point Cemetery to pay her respects to Clara Maud Giles, her first cousin four times removed.
"It was just kind of nice to find a sense of belonging," she said. "If I were dead for like 300 years, I'd love for somebody to come and visit me and to be remembered."
For Skafte, whose familial roots lie in Ontario, the allure of abandoned cemeteries is less about self-discovery but rather uncovering the memories of generations past.
Sometimes he'll be able to glean a few details about the dead through obituaries or folklore. But more often that not, all he knows about the people who are buried are the fading names and dates inscribed on the markers.
But Skafte said every time he unearths a tombstone, he feels a sense of connection that seems to collapse time.
"All the brush you find, it's in the way of the history," said Skafte. "As soon as you peel that back, it feels like you're almost right when it happened."
Graveyards contain troves of information about the ways people lived, said historian Allan Marble, whose efforts to catalogue and conserve Nova Scotia's abandoned cemeteries helped enshrine the protection of these sites under provincial law.
In some ways, Skafte's Facebook group is a crowdsourced extension of the research Marble started about 50 years ago when he set out to survey cemeteries in Annapolis Valley and Colchester County.
The retired Dalhousie University professor said these tombstones provided vital insights into Nova Scotia's history.
Dates of death shed light on the severity of epidemics centuries ago. Graves marked by numbers instead of names exemplified the mistreatment of the poor. Prejudices determined where the dead were buried, segregating cemeteries by race and religion.
"Gravestone inscriptions are sort of like an outdoor library on people's lives," said Marble. "Abandoned cemeteries may become totally lost, and that information becomes lost."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2021.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
NDP motion regarding Palestinian statehood passes after major Liberal alterations
A motion from the federal New Democrats initially calling on Canada to recognize the 'State of Palestine' passed amid widespread acrimony on Monday, after the Liberals drastically altered its wording to see the government simply work towards that aim as part of a two-state solution.
'He didn't want to die': Family of Calgary man killed in standoff speaks out
Family of a Calgary man killed after a 30-hour standoff with police last week are speaking out, sharing details of the tense and heart-wrenching experience.
Toronto family doctor who called patient's body 'perfect' suspended for 3 months: tribunal
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.
Ohio mom who left toddler alone 10 days when she went on vacation pleads guilty to aggravated murder
An Ohio mother whose 16-month-old daughter died after being left home alone in a playpen for 10 days last summer while she went on vacation was sentenced Monday to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Retired teacher pleads guilty to paying for sex with 15-year-old in Collingwood, Ont.
In a Barrie courtroom on Monday, a retired high school teacher from the Niagara Region pleaded guilty to sexual touching and obtaining sexual services from a 15-year-old boy in Collingwood in 2021.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
5 charged in Calgary kidnappings that targeted women
Calgary police have charged five men in a pair of kidnappings last year that targeted innocent victims.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Canadian commander of volunteer fighter group dies in Ukraine
A Canadian-born commander of the so-called Norman Brigade, a volunteer fighting group in Ukraine, has died.