Dawson Cemeteries

On a hill above the town of Dawson City are multiple cemeteries.  There is a public one (i.e. Protestant) that slopes down the hill toward town.   Babies were buried with their cribs around them.

There is the Yukon Order of Pioneers( YOOP), and you had to have come in the first year of the Gold Rush to belong.  Those guys died out, and now descendants can belong.  The first cemetery, which is in town, quickly filled, and so they started a new one on the hill. They didn't have marble, so they made markers out of wood, painted them white and added some pattern to make them look like marble.  All of the paint is long since gone. I am amazed at how many Scandinavian names there are here.

There is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police cemetery.

And the most "populated" is the Catholic cemetery.  John was amazed at how many countries are represented here.  There appears to be a large Hungarian, Czechoslovakian contingency, England, Australia, Peru, the US --  they came from virtually from all over the world.

There is a small Jewish cemetery. And a masonic one, which is currently being renovated. (not pictured)

There is an historical society that is trying to identify all who were buried here, and people come from all over trying to research relatives who left for the Gold Rush and locate their grave.  John saw a brand new stone on one old grave, placed there by a family from Argentina.