This Saturday, July 9th, is Discovery Day at Mountain View Cemetery. In anticipation of the event John Atkin was asked to answer some questions about aspects of Mountain View that people may not know.

1. What is an unknown fact about Mountain View Cemetery?
That it is Vancouver’s only cemetery. That it was one of the first pieces of business conducted by the new City - find a suitable spot for a cemetery.

2. Over the 125 years of Mountain View Cemetery, how has it shaped the community?
The cemetery has been a place of great importance and ceremony for the city in its early years and a quiet refuge and “park” for the neighbourhood for many years (notably since the 1970s), and now it is again a place of celebration that includes the community.

3. As a civic historian what would you say is the most interesting fact about Mountain View?
Since it’s the only cemetery in the city almost all of early Vancouver is buried there which gives it a richness some cemeteries don’t have. And because Vancouver was the big city on the coast we got many burials from the big disasters throughout BC. Plus memorials for firemen, musicians, and importantly the three Veteran’s Fields of Honour.

4. Mountain View Cemetery resides over 106 acres in Vancouver, what is your favorite place among that 106 acres?
The Masonic area with its formal layout and fountains and the Horne section in the far north which is a hill with great stones and a view.

5. Following Stanley Park & Queen Elizabeth Park, Mountain View Cemetery appears to be the 3rd largest open “green area” in Vancouver. In 125 years how has Mountain View Cemetery been able to maintain its beauty and heritage?
Luckily in Vancouver the cemetery was and always has been a publicly owned facility and never had to face the pressures some older private cemeteries have to once they are full - no revenue usually means the company sells the land eventually. When the question was briefly floated in the 1990s in Vancouver, residents replied with a resounding “hands off” which set the cemetery on its current course of revitalization.

6. Being Vancouver’s only cemetery, how big of a role does the Mountain View Cemetery play in the history of Vancouver?
Huge because it is Vancouver’s history in stone.

7. If we were to look at Mountain View Cemetery 125 years ago what would we see?
Forest, streams, and swamps with a very narrow “trail” through the forest connecting Vancouver with the Fraser River. Not a journey undertaken lightly.

Click here for more information on Discovery Day at Mountain View Cemetery.