Last month, while browsing through the events in Eventbrite I stumbled across something called a cemetery tour. This was unusual and I was intrigued. Even back in India I used to love visiting tombs and cemeteries so much that my friends used to make fun of me. I had to attend this one. And best of all it was free so I registered.
I reached the Maple Ridge Cemetery in Maple Ridge, BC a full 30 mins ahead of time so that I could look around a bit by myself. I walked inside the cemetery and casually strolled around. It was nice pleasant evening. There were not too many people around. Just a couple of families at the far end of the cemetery. Soon as the time for the tour approached I saw an old lady walk towards me. I found out she was the guide for our tour. Her name was Erica. She was a local historian and volunteers extra time organizing tours like these. We chatted for a while we waited for the other people to turn up but by the start time it looked like I was the only one on the tour. No one else turned up.
So we started on the walk and Erica led me around different sections of the cemetery. Many of the famous personalities of Maple Ridge and Lower Mainland were buried here. This is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cemeteries in the Lower Mainland. The walk went as follows. We walk towards a grave and Erica talks about a brief history of the person buried there and then talks about the grave marker including the symbolism and design. It was all fascinating. One grave type caught my attention more than others. This was a scroll type marker. It is a cylinder which stands on two holders. The cylinder is not permanently fixed to the holders so its free to rotate on its axis. Erica told me of an interesting phenomena. In Winters whenever there is a heavy snowfall the accumulated snow below the cylinder lifts it up above the holders. And the next day when the snow melts the cylinder falls back on the holders. Sometimes in this process the cylinder rotates on its axis. So one day you will see something written on the cylinder but the next day either the position of that writing will have changed or you wont be able to even see it. A person oblivious to this effect might be unnerved.
The whole walk was for an hour and a half and I got to know a lot about the local history and the types of graves. Erica was great in explaining and mentioning some nice facts. It was nice way to spend a weekend evening.