Union Cemetery - Calgary Parks 100 Traditional Cache
Hidden : 4/27/2010
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:




Calgary Parks 100 Project - Calgary Area Cachers teaming up with The City of Calgary Parks

The cache is outside the fence, hanging around in a tree. Please respect the area and return to search later if the area is busy.

Union Cemetery is the oldest burial ground in Calgary. Many of the founders and early pioneers of Calgary and district are buried here.

History of Union Cemetery
In the fall of 1875, Inspector Brisebois and fifty members of NorthWest Mounted Police were sent west from Ottawa to suppress the illegal whiskey trade. After an arduous trek, they established a fort at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers - an outpost that was soon to be named Fort Calgary. The settlement grew slowly until the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883 - but then it was full steam ahead.

In 1884, Calgary was incorporated as a town with a population of over one thousand people. By year's end, it boasted its first newspaper (founded the previous year), some thirty major buildings, and a healthy economy based on farming and ranching.

One of the first tasks of the new council was finding land for a Protestant cemetery. The only existing graveyard at the Roman Catholic mission was clearly inadequate to meet future needs and councilors needed about fifty acres in a suitable location. The place they chose was Shaganappi Point; a beautiful spot overlooking the river valley which is now the site of the Shaganappi Golf Course.

From Shaganappi Point to Union Cemetery
Unfortunately, these were the days when graves had to be dug by hand and it wasn't long before rocky soil conditions at Shaganappi Point forced council to seek another location.

The new site, on a hill to the south of the town, was known as Union Cemetery.

When Union Cemetery was established in 1891, the cost of a single plot was five dollars, a double plot was ten dollars, and the charge for digging and closing was two dollars. These were significant amounts at the time - especially since the new burial ground could hardly be called convenient. Since no bridge existed over the Elbow River, funeral carriages had to lurch up and down steep banks and slosh through fairly deep and hazardous water. Pedestrian mourners had to wait till a ferryman rowed them over, a few at a time. And don't forget that Calgary's weather was as unpredictable then as it is today - something that was eventually recognized in 1909, when a mortuary chapel was built to store sealed coffins for the winter.

Union Cemetery remembers the famous and the not so famous in its chiseled history. Here, you'll find the last resting place of pioneers and settlers whose names are synonymous with Calgary: newspaperman and politician Bob Edwards; A.E. Cross and William Roper Hull, RCMP Colonel James Macleod, and legendary black cowboy John Ware.

Rev. Robertson, the founder of the Knox United Church is remembered among the sleeping stones. So is Esther Honens, creator of the piano festival that bears her name. Here, too, is the family plot of the Lougheed clan, close to the many other distinguished families who helped build our modern city. More than ten thousand graves tell their silent stories - and only a few reclaimed plots remain available.

In 1913, the City dedicated a landmark archive in Union Cemetery to William R. Reader, a renowned horticulturist who devoted twenty-nine years of his life to the greening of Calgary. In 1990, the archive was relocated to preserve the historical artifact and increase its visibility. The structure can now be found at the top of the hill overlooking the Reader Rock Gardens and the pathway system.

Cemeteries are like museums, their headstones serving as a record of our culture and social history. In enduring stone, they reflect personal and national sentiment; speak of love, pity and patriotism; summarize lives of remarkable longevity and remind us of lives lost to war and heartbreaking infant mortality.

Following a disastrous fire in 1886 which destroyed much of Calgary's main business section, the town council passed an ordinance stipulating that all large downtown buildings must be constructed of Paskapoo sandstone, a local building material in abundant supply. Consequently, Calgary soon became a city of sandstone buildings, much admired by visitors.

But, while sandstone has withstood the test of time as a building material, monuments made from it have not fared as well. The deteriorating sandstone memorials in older areas of Union Cemetery are a sad sight indeed. Some are unreadable; others are so badly worn that their original shape and design are lost forever. It was the sight of these eroding memorials, which prompted Pauline Kearns Ashley and Mary Kearns Trace to begin recording Union Cemetery gravestones in 1986. Their meticulous work, Monumental Transcriptions of Union Cemetery, Calgary, Alberta, was complied with every effort to maintain accuracy. Copies can be accessed in The City of Calgary Corporate Records Archives or in the Local History Room of the Calgary Public Library. Burial registers for Union Cemetery are also available in the Archives.

William R. Reader's Cemetery Vision
Reader felt that a cemetery should not try to hide its purpose but, in his own words, "...the evidence of death ought not to be allowed to be repulsive...it can at least be made a monument, in its entirety, to those whose bodies are placed in it".

Celebrating Calgary Parks 100th Anniversary!
The Calgary Parks 100 Project is a partnership between The City of Calgary Parks, and the Calgary Area Cachers to celebrate Calgary Parks 100th anniversary. Calgary Parks has supplied cache containers and swag for 100 caches, and then we have placed these 100 caches in 100 parks around Calgary. These caches have some cool swag and trackables when placed, so make sure to find them as soon as they are published.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Rnfg fvqr, purfg uvtu.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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