Watch above: Saskatoon’s first cemetery helps tell the story of the city’s earliest residents. Meaghan Craig visits Pioneer Cemetery, located in the Exhibition neighbourhood.
SASKATOON – “Look back to where you have been – for a clue to where you are going.”
What better place to do that than the final resting place of some of the first settlers in Saskatoon. Located on the edge of the riverbank in the Exhibition neighbourhood, Pioneer Cemetery is a wealth of information with every step.
“A fellow by Robert Clark was a new arrival in Saskatoon and got tapped to come help fight a prairie fire which pretty common occurrence back then and he caught pneumonia as a consequence and died.”
Clark would be laid to rest at the cemetery which at the time was just empty riverbank.
“He was buried way out on the riverbank, it was one of bunch of graves that were moved in 1970 because there was worries about slumping on the riverbank.”
Twenty-two graves were relocated within the Pioneer Cemetery. The only grave moved to Woodlawn Cemetery was some 66 years prior in 1904, after a slumping major event left a coffin exposed.
“By 1910, the Woodlawn cemetery was established and that was the official burial ground for Saskatoon so they basically limited burials here to people who were shareholders of the cemetery company or their families or who already owned a plot.”
The chronology of the cemetery:
1883 – First permanent residents in Saskatoon
1884 – First burial – Robert Clark
1889 – Cemetery officially recognized by territorial government
1903 – Nutana Cemetery Co. started
1904 – Slumping on the river bank exposed the grave of Napoleon Charpentier, who was reinterred at Woodlawn in 1905
1905 – Petition circulated requesting cemetery north of the river (becomes Woodlawn, opens 1906)
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1910 – Cemetery transferred to City of Saskatoon – burials limited to plot owners & Nutana Cemetery Co. shareholders and families
1948 – Last burial took place
1968-1970 – Operations to preserve graves in Blocks 12-14 from potential damage from riverbank slumping; moved to Block 1
1982 – Receives heritage status
1984 – Further slumping, but no damage done to the cemetery
There are 162 known burials at the graveyard of which only 144 that have been identified.
There is also the unmarked grave of Neville Pendygrasse, who drowned after falling off a ferry. His mother wanting to be close would be the first homestead in the Exhibition area in 1887, building at what is now the corner of St. Henry and Isabella.
Tombstones that tell us what life and death was like back then. One tombstone, in the northwest part of the cemetery was a man who froze to death after losing his way in a blizzard.
“A place like this will tell all of our oldest stories right here.”
The cemetery has also seen it’s fair share of vandalism events, the biggest in 1930, 1952 and 1985 with a number of stones having to be repaired over time.
There are also no verifiable stories that prove the graveyard is haunted but that hasn’t stopped rumours from flying.
“You can hear the sound of babies crying in the still of a dark night but it’s nonsense.” added O’Brien.
“The other story you sometimes hear is that during a slumping event in 1984, caskets were actually exposed and fell down into the river and somebody wrote that there was caskets floating down the river that day. Again, that didn’t happen no river, no caskets, no floating, nothing.”
Pioneer Cemetery is located on the north edge of Diefenbaker Park at the intersection of St. Henry Avenue and Ruth Street West.
City officials ask people visiting the cemetery not to touch or lean on the markers and to contact the cemetery superintendent at 306-975-3308 if there are signs of vandalism or areas that require maintenance.
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