Badlands Cemetery

Standing on the very edge of the Alberta Badlands, peer down and be awestruck on seeing the scenic valley below. There’s the car way over there by the river. Hello, we just came from there. All that layered strata. Next spin around and it’s endless fields of golden grain waving gently in the breeze. Here’s a scene right out of a painting. Then come upon it, heart still pounding from the climb up, an overgrown plot of land marks the spot.

Step inside, the grass waist high in places. Here, a head stone. Over there, another. Further still, occasional depressions (alone) tell of other graves. We’ve arrived. This is it. We’re at the Badlands Cemetery in a beautiful little corner of the province. Not a bad place to spend all of eternity. Nice and quiet. So peaceful. Perhaps a bit lonely…if that’s a thing when one’s deceased…

There’s some hundred and sixty people interred here. Give or take. There’s a few stone monuments, a couple of wood and almost all have fallen over, sunken, or in some way are in rough shape. The majority of the graves, however, lack anything to indicate where each is. Given there was lots of poor folks in the area back when, it’s suggested some were unmarked “pauper’s” graves. When times are tough…

Other graves, it’s said, once had markers of wood, which I guess have since rotted away, or maybe are toppled over and unseen in the sometimes thick underbrush.

Overhead the sky turns a sombre tone. How fitting.

We look at the names, the few that can be read…

“Hi Mary.”

“Margaret, nice to know you.” A baby, only two weeks on this earth. On the head stone, a message from brokenhearted parents…”Our darling”…

“Beniamino, how’s it going?” I see your friends paid for the head stone (so it is written) – nice of them to do that. Gone by your early 20s? That’s way too soon.

Records show that many buried here listed coal mining as their occupation. Back in the day, standing in this very spot, once could have seen a good half dozen of these mines visible in the valley below. All are long gone (by the 1950s) but many are marked by left over spoil, coal slack and red oxidized shale. If you know what to look for they stand out.

The cemetery was in use from the 1910s-1940s then seemingly abandoned. Afterwards it’s said the deceased were sent to another town not far away, but why exactly was not made clear in any of the papers we found. With the last person buried, it’s been pretty quiet since. It’s a good walk in and a climb up, so that keeps people away. And it’s sort of hidden and so not well known. Not many visitors here.

This cemetery is jealously guarded by those in the area and this helps explain why we’ve been a bit vague when speaking of it. No names, no real directions. This is the state of things I guess. And if they request it, we oblige.

Team BIGDoer was on assignment this day, our job to confirm that names on the few headstones matched up with those in an official database. And they did. Behinds the scenes work like this, by the way, helps keep the society on an even keel. Now you know.

Our task completed, we turn and leave. Looking back just before dropping down, we think about all those souls in that unkempt half acre (or what ever size it is), who they were, what they did, their life story. Their happiness, their woe. Here and gone, some in the wink of an eye, and for many no doubt completely forgotten by the outside world. Overcome by feelings of loss…and of loneliness

I hope someone remembers me when I venture out to the great beyond (via the down escalator I suspect).

Keeping a cemetery theme…
Calgary’s Best Walks #20 (sorta).
Superman 1978 cemetery scenes – then and now.
In Search of Mitford Alberta part 1.

If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date: October, 2017.
Location: Alberta Badlands.
Article references (and thanks): Local History Books, CanadaGenWeb’s Cemetery Project.
If you visit the Badland’s Cemetery, please show it respect.

A forgotten cemetery on the Alberta Plains.

There’s a few headstones, but most graves are unmarked.

Some hundred and sixty people are interred here.

Many markers have fallen over.

A simple wood cross…

…But most others are of stone.

The cemetery was in use from the 1910s-1940s.

On the edge of the badlands.

The site is returning to nature.

“Our darling”…two weeks on this earth.