The Dead Die Twice: An amateur historian’s new book on forgotten N.S. cemeteries

A Nova Scotia photographer and amateur historian has turned his interest in the province’s abandoned cemeteries into a new book.

“The Dead Die Twice: Abandoned Cemeteries of Nova Scotia” by Steve Skafte features 80 photos along side narrative non-fiction.

Steve Skafte is pictured at a burial ground in Plympton, N.S. (Courtesy: Steve Skafte)Skafte has been chronicling his adventures around the province since the fall of 2007.

“I just came back from a bicycle trip, solo trip across New Brunswick and Maine, and I came back to a job I didn’t much like at the time and I thought, ‘Hey, exploring Nova Scotia that should be just as good as exploring Maine,” he says. “So I started doing it and was pretty amazed at the sort of things I found for a place I’ve lived my whole life.”

He found many overgrown cemeteries and then began researching what was hiding in wooded areas.

Skafte says they are a good reflection of quiet, rural life in Nova Scotia.

“Having grown up in a place that a lot of people I knew moved away, they have that sort of leftover quality that I identify with, but also they give me a chance to -- I don’t want to say own the history -- but it’s like I can have a history that’s in a pocket to itself that I experience and that I can share with people that hasn’t been over said, it hasn’t been covered by anybody else. And the experience is real adventure to me.”

He says not all abandoned cemeteries are necessarily off the beaten path.

Eagleson Cemetery in Upper-Granville, N.S., is pictured. (Courtesy: Steve Skafte)

“Some are surprisingly close, like maybe only 100 feet off the road, but there are other ones that I’ve spent hours going in circles or in grids through the woods to find. You’ll see them anywhere in between deep in the woods where there was a community 100 years ago, to others that are really just off of the field into a tree line, but that’s enough to completely bury them from sight.”

Skafte says he mostly decides which tombstones to research based off where they are located.

“Sometimes, it’s decided for you, because there are a lot of very quick dead ends. As you try to find out more you discover quickly that there doesn’t seem to be any more to find,” he says. “So I’d say that the decisions are largely made for me, but I do want to tell stories about the most beautiful stones or the ones that seem like they were forgotten more completely than the others.”

East Side Cemetery in Voglers Cove, N.S., is pictured. (Courtesy: Steve Skafte)

One of the many stones Skafte found is in Voglers Cove in Lunenburg County, which just says “Siamese twins” along with the names of their parents.

“For these to even be mentioned at the time it would have been very unusual. It’s a sort of story that many families would of tried to bury as there would have been a certain stigma about it at the time and they were, obviously, not inclined to keep that under the radar. They wanted to say what had happened and say it right on the stone there. I really like to be able to get that kind of thing across.”

“The Dead Die Twice: Abandoned Cemeteries of Nova Scotia” will be released next month and is available for pre-order online.