A Vision for Gabriola

The gathering space at the Salt Spring Island Natural Cemetery, Salt Spring Island, BC.

Green burial cemeteries look quite different from most cemeteries; they are often established in designated natural areas such as meadows or woodlands and don’t incorporate headstones or the manicured landscaping of conventional cemeteries. In some locations, Denman Island for example, their green cemetery is repopulating an area that was clear cut in the late 1990’s with indigenous plants and trees. In other locations like Salt Spring Island, burials are placed in natural clearings of an existing forest. Supporting the landscape to return to or maintain its natural state is an important principle of green burial.

The natural cemeteries on Denman and Salt Spring Islands offer different elements for Gabriola to consider as we work toward a vision for our own green burial cemetery. The Gabriola Island Memorial Society decided early on to pursue a community non-profit model and in our initial visioning, a small covered area for gathering, walking trails, and a central memorial were identified as desirable. Work to develop more specific plans for a site will depend on the land we acquire and informed feedback from our community.

A Tale of Two Natural Burial Cemeteries

Denman Island Natural Burial Cemetery

The natural cemetery operated by the Denman Island Memorial Society is run as a community non-profit cemetery and serves the past and present residents and landowners of Denman Island and their families. The site is located on a 1.06 ha parcel donated by the Denman Conservancy Association who continues to hold a conservation covenant on the land. The cemetery has been operating since 2015 and employs a part-time manager. It has a non-covered gathering space between two curved concrete memorial walls. Individual graves are not marked but individual bronze plaques, installed on the memorial walls, record every burial. DINBC sells whole body burial plots on a “pre-need” or “at-need” basis and they have a small scattering garden for cremated remains.

The DIMS website provides information and resources on many aspects of green burial.

Salt Spring Island Natural Cemetery

The natural cemetery on Salt Spring Island is a for profit business run by Cathy Valentine and Gavin Johnston. It opened in 2020 and is situated on over 5 hectares of their family farm. SSINC offers burials to anyone, regardless of place of residence or connection to the Salt Spring community. Interment here is done in natural clearings of the forest and whole body burial plots are sold on a “pre-need” or “at-need” basis. There is a small covered area with a fire pit for gathering, an adjacent washroom and parking. Memorialization is at individual graves with etched stones sourced from the property. There is a small scattering garden.

The SSINC website has lots of great information on their services and green burial in general including links to many media interviews and print articles about them.

A Vision For Gabriola

Photo Credit: Bill Pope

Early in our education and information gathering work, representatives of what would later become the Gabriola Island Memorial Society visited both Denman and Salt Spring Island Natural Cemeteries. We had informative conversations with the people there who were involved with creating and maintaining those sites. We also met with Eric Lees who is one of the founders of The Green Burial Society of Canada and a Principal at Lees + Associates, a landscape architect firm specializing in cemetery planning, and we hosted a public talk with him here on Gabriola in May 2022. We learned a lot from these folks about what is important in designing a green burial site including some of the things they did right and some they wish they’d done differently.

A few of the key things we’ve learned from the experiences of Denman and Salt Spring Island and our own information gathering that we hope to incorporate in a Gabriola site include:

  1. Having a location within or adjacent to a conservation area with trails for walking and spaces to sit in contemplation;

  2. Designing a space to facilitate transition from our daily world into one that is sacred and peaceful;

  3. Ensuring the burial needs and desires of the Snuneymuxw First Nation are met by working with them to design a separate space if they so choose;

  4. Building a small covered area for gathering and for tool storage and having a small area for parking; and

  5. Including a community memorial and a small garden for scattering ashes.

Acquiring Suitable Land for a Natural Burial Site on Gabriola

One of the key issues neither the Denman or Salt Spring Island Natural Cemeteries had to deal with was land acquisition. The Denman Conservancy Association was willing to donate land to the Denman Memorial Society for their site and of course, Cathy and Gavin on Salt Spring already owned their farm when they went to work to establish their natural burial site. To date GIMS has had preliminary conversations with a number of private land holders and the Regional District of Nanaimo.

When the Gabriola Land and Trails Trust approached GIMS in early 2022 with the possibility of working jointly to try to acquire the 40 acre land parcel at the end of Honeysuckle Road we got excited. The land is beautiful and preliminary geotechnical work indicates parts of it would likely be perfect for a natural burial site. Collaborating with GaLTT and the possibility of getting land transferred from the provincial government without having to incur signifiant costs were also especially appealing.

The work to transfer Honeysuckle Woods to the Gabriola community to meet important conservation goals and provide a much needed new green burial space had been steadily moving forward but stalled at the doorstep of the Provincial Aggregate Manager for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure in October 2022. MoTI has refused to engage in further discussions with MLA Routley about this project and of course also erected the “No Trespassing” signs on the property in March 2023.

Acquiring land is a significant challenge for GIMS; the cost of purchasing land on Gabriola is prohibitive for a small non-profit society. There are a number of important considerations like setback from wells, soil depth and composition and ease of access that restrict what land might be suitable for a natural cemetery. Added to this, the costs for designing and building the site can quickly add up - geotechnical and survey work is needed, work to create the site design and erect simple structures or roads, and legal and administrative work are all expenses that GIMS will need to fundraise for.