This archaeologist wants people to get out and explore cemeteries with her upcoming book

An archaeologist who fo‐ cuses on preserving ceme‐ teries is putting together a guide book to get more people exploring these con‐ nections to the past.

Robyn Lacy, an archeolo‐ gist specializing in historic burial grounds and Black Cat Cemetery Preservation co-di‐ rector, is teaming up with Newfoundland-based pub‐ lisher Boulder Books to re‐ lease A Graveyard Guide to Eastern Newfoundland.

"Cemeteries are really good ways to learn more about a community," Lacy re‐ cently told CBC News.

She described how head‐ stones document individual people, contain information about economics and reli‐ gion, and act as pieces of sculpture.

LISTEN | CBC's Jamie Fitz‐ patrick drops by the General Protestant Cemetery in St. John's to chat with archaeolo‐ gist Robyn Lacy about her upcoming book A Graveyard Guide to Eastern Newfound‐ land:

"You can find out a lot about where stone was com‐ ing from, which is connected to trade networks where the carvers were," Lacy said.

For instance, when it comes to the General Protes‐ tant Cemetery in St. John's, Lacy said a lot of the stone carvers were from the city. But in a community like Trinity, the limestone mark‐ ers were imported from the

British Isles.

Through her guide book she hopes to introduce read‐ ers to these cemeteries, among others in her upcom‐ ing book.

Signing a book deal

The graveyard guide book won't be Lacy's debut book. She has already published Burial and Death in Colonial North America: Exploring In‐ terment Practices and Land‐ scapes in 17th-Century British Settlements and her second book Daisy Wheel, Hexfoil, Hexafoil, Rosette: Protective Marks in Grave‐ stone Art will be released later this year.

Lacy said she had meet‐ ings with Boulder Books president Gavin Will and they came on the idea of a ceme‐ tery guidebook.

"That could be a different way for people to explore the province, with some little his‐ tory tidbits," said Lacy.

Will said the idea for a graveyard guide book in‐ trigued him.

"It kind of fits in with Boul‐ der's other work, where we're talking about heritage," said Will. "A lot of it is natural heritage with our guide‐ books, but also cultural her‐ itage."

There's a lot of public in‐ terest in the book already, he said, which doesn't surprise him as people are passionate about their ancestors.

"People are very, very in‐ terested in where they come from and cemeteries are em‐ blematic of that," Will said.

The book is scheduled to be released in 2026 and Will added they're looking for public input and for people to come forward with ceme‐ teries that may not be on their radar yet.

Icons of the past

Archaeology is a vast subject but Lacy said she was drawn to studying cemeteries "be‐ cause it's an interesting way to connect to the past."

"Taxes and death are the universal things in society.

And being able to look at the last aspects of somebody's life and the funeral practices and different communities tell us a lot about how they were living as well."

As an undergraduate stu‐ dent Lacy said she was initial‐ ly interested in maritime ar‐ chaeology. It was while at a field school in Ireland with the University of Liverpool that had her recording his‐ toric cemeteries where her focus shifted.

"Sitting there in the Irish rain in July. It was like 2 de‐ grees. Apparently that was the best thing ever," she laughed. "And I've sort of been on this completely dif‐ ferent trajectory since then."

She hasn't done extensive background research on the General Protestant Cemetery yet but explained it was a non-denominational site ran through the Protestant church.

"We do have people from different walks of life here, which are really interesting to talk about too," said Lacy.

In the cemetery today, she said she can see a juxtaposi‐ tion of older grave markers, made from materials like marble and sandstone, mix‐ ed with more modern ones made from granite.

Grave markers them‐ selves can also tell people in‐ formation about the time pe‐ riod through engraved im‐ agery, she said. Classical symbols, like urns and willow trees, were popular in the 19th century.

"And we call it the soften‐ ing of death," she said, like a figure of someone sleeping. "It's very peaceful. Whereas if you go back farther to the 18th and 17th centuries, you get the skulls and the cherub."

There would also be carv‐ ings of coffins and other symbols associated like hour glasses, to remind people that they were also going to die.

When Lacy started doing research, she realized there were far too many sites to in‐ clude in just one book.

"There would be far too many sites, it would be like a tomb," she said, "I decided to cut it as if the province was a taco, just fold the island in half." As a result, this book will focus on cemeteries east of Grand Falls-Windsor.

If the book does well, a following book would explore the western half of the island and Labrador, Lacy said.

"One of my supervisors' kids said that every road in Newfoundland ends in a cemetery," said Lacy. "Unfor‐ tunately I'm not going to be able to fit every single site in the province in guidebooks."

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