Fort Victoria’s first graveyard was established in 1843 and was located just north of the fort and next to a ravine. Today the graveyard lies below a former coffee shop at a busy intersection in the center of the city and the story of its closure in 1855 is intriguing if not somewhat gruesome. Local historian and author John Adams (in “Six Feet Under at the Old Burying Ground”, a chapter he authored for “Victoria Underfoot: Excavating a City’s Secrets”, Harbour Publishing, 2008) describes that the community was horrified when pigs began rooting up corpses in the old graveyard. In response Governor James Douglas established a new cemetery on Quadra Street in 1855. The story goes that a chain gang from the jail was assigned the grisly task of moving bodies and tombstones to the new cemetery, a job they completed less than satisfactorily as human remains were uncovered during road works many years later.
In 1855 the new cemetery, commonly referred to as the Old Burying Ground, was located on the outskirts of town but before long it was enveloped by the sprawl of homes and businesses fuelled by the gold rush. The rapid rise in population also meant that by the early 1870’s the cemetery was filling up and it was subsequently closed in 1873. Unfortunately the old cemetery was poorly maintained and it became the target of vandalism. In 1908 the city removed most of the memorial stones and converted the cemetery into a city park named Pioneer Square. I suspect many of the locals who stretch out on the grassy lawns today are unaware that six feet below lie some 1300 permanent residents, including some Orkney pioneers.
The closure of the Old Burying Ground was made possible by the opening of Ross Bay Cemetery in 1873. Beautifully situated on the edge of Ross Bay the 27.5 acre Victorian-style cemetery is the final resting place for nearly 28,000 souls, including some of British Columbia’s most prominent citizens: Sir James Douglas and family, Sir Mathew Baillie Begbie (the “Hanging Judge”) and artist Emily Carr. At least 53 Orkney-born pioneers are buried here and nearly two-thirds have a grave-marker or memorial stone.
