Beechwood Cemetery tours tell the history of Canada
For decades now, Ian Guthrie has explored the grounds administered by Beechwood Funeral, Cemetery and Cremation Services, absorbing their serenity, history and fresh air.
He’s long appreciated the fact that Beechwood, with 160 acres of gardens, monuments and old-growth forest, is more than just a cemetery.
“It’s not a storage place for the deceased, it’s a place for the rest of us, where we can come and remember people who have gone before us with honour and dignity,” says Guthrie, a retired schoolteacher.
“It’s also a great place for recreational activities in the sense of recreation, in that you feel better when you leave than you did before you arrived.”
Ten years ago, the Friends of Beechwood helped launch a tour program at Beechwood. Back then, there were just two volunteers, Jacques Faille and Guthrie, who conducted group tours whenever they were booked. Now there are six volunteers, and tours are conducted at 1 p.m. on the fourth Sunday of each month from April until November, rain or shine.
Beechwood volunteers have conducted tours of just one person and ones with up to 40. They average about 15 to 20 people, and run about 90 minutes. These tours can also be adapted to accommodate small buses, or school groups who have an interest in learning about a particular subject. Beechwood also hosts annual themed historical tours in which costumed actors perform vignettes about featured individuals. Past subjects have included some of the photographers, artists, mayors, lumber barons, adventurers and explorers that populate Canada’s national cemetery. This year’s theme is Life in 1867 and will be held on Sunday, Sept. 10 at 2 p.m.
There is no shortage of material. Some 80,000 people have been buried at Beechwood since it was founded 144 years ago, comprising different races, faiths and cultures as well as every social status. Their headstones tell the epic story of our country beyond the cemetery’s boundaries, highlighting the growth and development of Canada from the early days of Confederation through today.
Its story spans the Scots and Irish with their Celtic crosses, to influxes of Chinese over various periods since the late-19th century, to the Portuguese and East European migrations of the 1950s and ’60s, and immigration today with its increasing number of memorials bearing Arabic and other scripts. As you walk the grounds of Beechwood, everywhere you look there is the evidence of cultural changes and inclusion reflecting our shared Canadian identity.
Beyond religion and ethnicity, Guthrie notes how time changes the way in which people are memorialized and reflects Canada’s evolving culture.
The Victorian-Edwardian sections of Beechwood are characterized by the tall obelisks. One of Guthrie’s favourites is topped by a clenched fist, its index finger pointing heavenward.
“Height was obviously important to Edwardian and Victorian peoples,” jokes the British native. Today’s headstones bear photographs, photographic etchings and even solar-powered candles. Statues have become more elaborate, detailed and reflective of Canadian diversity.
The small headstone marking the plot of Carmen Jolicoeur, who for years taught dance in Ottawa, bears a strikingly beautiful bronze statuette of a ballerina – a stark contrast to former prime minister Sir Robert Borden’s hefty limestone cross.
Guthrie is especially fond of the old family plots, many of them representative of a time when large families were the norm and kin stayed closer to home. He also notes the “alarming number” of preschool children who died when Beechwood was in its infancy – about half failed to reach their fifth birthday at the time.
They impress upon people that “we’re the most fortunate generation that ever lived because we live, by and large, to be adults ourselves, to see our children grow up to be adults, and even see our grandchildren and greatgrandchildren grow up to be adults. That would have astonished people 150 years ago.”
Then of course, there are the uniformly grey headstones found in the military sections, marking those who served in the name of Canada. The Veterans section is formed in an infantrystyle hollow square surrounding a Cross of Sacrifice identical to those found in Commonwealth cemeteries around the world. The newer National Military Cemetery slopes eastward, toward the rising sun, reflective of the Laurence Binyon poem For the Fallen and the promise that “in the morning, we will remember them.”
In springtime, Beechwood’s sacred ground comes alive with 35,000 bulbs blossoming in a riot of coordinated colour, now with the added red and white of 10,000 Canadian tulips; developed in the Netherlands for the country’s 150th birthday.
The magnificent trees – 2,800, threequarters of them deciduous and many as old as the cemetery itself, or older – sprout their leaves, sing the rustling songs of the winds and stand like sentinels.
Elizabeth Raymont Heatherington took walking tours through Beechwood for several years before joining the team of volunteer guides this year. She says many visitors return each season to photograph their favourite trees.
“The shapes of the mature maples are so elegant, especially during the winter,” says Beechwood’s newest guide, who has attended Chamberfest concerts in the cemetery’s acoustically friendly Sacred Space for almost a decade.
Built on a farm 150 years ago, the once rural cemetery is surrounded by the city.
“In many ways, you’d hardly know that,” says Guthrie. “It really feels like you’re separate from the city.”
The grounds, which still have space for about 250 years of burials, offer respite from the hectic pace and transitory nature of modern life, providing a lasting reminder that change is inevitable but continuity is underlying and everlasting.
Said Ian Guthrie: “It gives a feeling that we are not just recent people.”
For more information on tours through Beechwood, call (613) 6863660 or visit www.beechwoodottawa. ca/foundation/tour-beechwood-2/