Dawson City - Bet Chaim & N.W.M.P. Cemetery

Day 08 - July 21st, 2024

Weather - Sunny, 25 degrees C

It's our third day in Dawson, and I'm certainly not getting tired of the sun! As has become our way, Earl dropped me off at the cemeteries and went off to do his own thing (he is a PhD student, after all!). Today, I took care of two of the smaller cemeteries, the R.C.M.P. Cemetery and Bet Chaim. Only about 1/3 of the burials within the R.C.M.P. Cemetery fell within the range of my study, and I have come to realize that Bet Chaim might not have any from my time frame at all. Still, when cemeteries are as small as these, there's no reason not to document the whole thing.

I took photos of all of the markers in the R.C.M.P. Cemetery and filled out surveys for the ones before 1900. I then made a little sketch map of the cemetery, accurate in terms of orientation and placement of the graves, so I could see where everyone was located in relation to everyone else. I did the same for Bet Chaim, quick and easy; the entire process took me an hour and a half for both cemeteries. During this time, Micheal, Kathy and I bumped into each other again; this time, they were looking for Y.O.O.P. burials that might be located in the old Hillside Cemetery. Kathy and I had a nice long chat, and we all parted ways once more.

I was making good time with my work today, but it was quite hot, so I placed my little solar-powered battery pack in the sun and found some shade while I double-checked my work from the day before with my pre-existing database. I looked at my database and made a list of individuals I knew were located in St.Mary's cemetery from 1898-1900 for whom we had images of the markers. The number of individuals amounted to 39; yet, somehow, during my surveying the day before, I had only managed to capture 38. I went over to Find a Grave (an online cemetery database) and looked at the grave of the individual I was missing, Charles Morel. I could see from the photo that his grave would be easy to find as it still had the original marker behind the new one and was quite substantial. Sure enough, I quickly located it and confirmed that it was his from the placement of knots in his old headboard. As it turns out, I had not filled out a survey for Mr.Morel because the entire inscription on his new marker - aka: anything that would have identified him as someone who had passed before 1900 - had been, seemingly, scraped off. I had taken a photo of the grave because it was in an area filled with 1898 graves; however, I did not fill out a survey because I could not confirm who was there as part of my study.

My photo of both Charles' old and "new" marker

The Find a Grave photo of Charles' marker, taken in 2014 by Kahpo

A close up of Charles' "new" marker

This minor incident perfectly highlights part of why I am up here doing this work, even though much of it had already been done decades prior by the Joneses and others. Because these burial sites and markers are constantly degrading. Because, if someone else had not taken a photo of this grave before I arrived in Dawson City, we might never have known it belonged to Charles Morel. Many of these burials are 125 years old, and even if a dozen photos have already been taken of them, there is value in seeing how they change or are lost through time. There is also the possibility that I might be recording someone who had previously been undocumented, which means that if someday their marker becomes lost and they are unmarked, we will still know where they are.

So, I spent the rest of my day making lists of all the markers in my database located within the old Hillside, 8th Avenue Y.O.O.P., and Typhoid cemeteries that we already had images of. This way, over the next few days, I could track who was still marked and whose markers had been lost.

When I was finished, Earl and I ran around town a bit and then returned to camp for the night. Though it doesn't feel like I got much done today, through my general fussiness, I learned something valuable and legitimized what I was doing when I was maybe beginning to doubt myself. Tomorrow will be a very good day. See you then!

-Nikki