March 1, 2002
Marking the grave sites
A project aimed at sorting
out who is buried where at the Iqaluit cemetery has found that there are more
unmarked graves at the site than originally thought.
Through the project, funded
by the municipality, organizers have amassed a database of people buried at
the cemetery and have mapped their burial plots.
The maps show there are
at least 645 grave sites in the cemetery. Of those, only 488 are marked. Theres
no indication who is buried in the remaining 157 sites.
Hospital records and death
certificates show that there are another 626 people from the Baffin region who
died in the town and are buried somewhere in the Iqaluit cemetery.
Councillor Glenn Williams,
who sits on the Niksiit committee working on the cemetery project, said what
first began as an Iqaluit project has now turned into a Baffin-wide search.
Because of the projects
new scope, the Niksiit committee is turning to Justice Minister Paul Okalik
for funding to help identify the 626 unmarked graves.
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