Dear Editor,

You would never think that the ugliest packed soil to be buried in Greenwood Cemetery, would be in their designated Natural Burial area. Actually, I think I would be hard pressed to find a more trampled and barren soil in Greenwood except for the parking lot. You may reasonably ask, “Why would an area, selected to honour nature, be barren of nature?” There are really two parts to the answer.

The first is that the city staff picked this clay sand barren location themselves. I can’t comment why they would think this space reflects the best of Grey County nature. If anyone asked those active in Natural Burial our own choice, we would have preferred a site near the compost pile, which is now just wild grass land. We naturalists like nothing better than compost for healthy soil. I would have said, “don’t put it there” except that they already buried someone there without presenting their planned location to anyone, including the person who died. A fait accompli.

Realizing the barrenness of the site, the city has agreed that they will make it natural, but only after there are “10 bodies in the ground”, a rather harsh way of describing their job or their sensitivity to our interests. So how long will we have to wait for 9 more people to, not just sign up, but also die and be buried in the dead clay? To find an answer we can look at some of Greenwoods more recent new cemetery areas. The recent Jewish area has now been active for 15 years and they are yet to reach 10 burials. Of course, they weren’t told, “Someday this will be a Jewish area but only after you bury at least 10 of your members.”

I wish I had a simple answer. The site they picked is not only barren but it is surrounded by tombstones on 3 sides. Their solution is to plant cedars around this area so no one can see it. Of course, a Natural area could be viewed as rather untidy when compared to the headstones and manicured grasses around it. It would be almost like being the only neighbour on the block who doesn’t tend their lawn and leaves it unkempt. I can see the tombstone neighbor complaining about the “untidiness” of their neighbors.

I had spent 12 years explaining the value of Natural Burial and encouraging the city to include an area for Owen Sound at our cemetery. Having succeeded, I can’t imagine myself or anyone else agreeing to be buried there without it first becoming natural.

Robert Hope
Owen Sound