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Vulcan County Coun. Christopher Northcott said the mapping of the unmarked graves will tell cemetery volunteers where they need to avoid digging new graves
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A University of Lethbridge drone project is helping rural southern Alberta communities figure out where unmarked graves are located.
This summer, a team used a drone equipped with multispectral and thermal imaging technology, and also completed topographical analysis sometimes used on archaeological digs, to find lost grave sites at cemeteries in Vulcan County.
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Dr. Craig Coburn, a University of Lethbridge geography and environment professor, said the work involved some early mornings to take geothermal images of the sites while the ground was as cold as possible, and then imaging them again in the afternoon, when it’s as warm as can be.
“You’re looking for contrasts between that, and we find the disturbed soil sites, the heat transmission is different for those,” said Coburn.
Images can also reveal whole grave sites which have become “basically invisible” on the ground over the years.
“You’re looking at the image, and there’s a rectangle there,” said Coburn. “Well, there’s only one way to make a rectangle, and that’s a person who did that.”
Another way of finding grave sites was using imagery from the university’s drone survey equipment to create a detailed elevation model, with small dips being visible where caskets disintegrated and the ground slightly collapsed.
“If those dips are occurring in places where we have markers and headstones, that’s fine. If those things are occurring in places where we’re uncertain, then all the county is wanting is a map that says ‘don’t excavate here,’” he said.
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Project helps cemeteries avoid disturbing old graves
Vulcan County secured a $15,000 donation from Mitacs, a non-profit national research organization, for the $30,000 project. The other half of the funding was provided by municipalities, including Vulcan County and three villages in the county, and community organizations in those villages. The year-long project is to be completed next spring.
Vulcan County Coun. Christopher Northcott said the mapping of the unmarked graves will tell cemetery volunteers where they need to avoid digging new graves.
“In our rural cemeteries, it is a challenge, because a lot of these graves that are unmarked are of course very old, and the records were either lost at some point or were never kept,” he said.
Disturbing old graves has unfortunately happened from time to time in Vulcan County cemeteries, said Northcott, a member of the Milo Lions Club, which takes care of the two cemeteries owned by the village of Milo, about 120 kilometres southeast of Calgary.
“We have had incidents where we have had to move over,” said Northcott. “It’s not fun when that happens. You really don’t want to do that.”
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‘I hate to disturb anybody’
Allan Bartsch, who’s been heavily involved with the two Milo cemeteries, said he’s hit three unmarked grave sites over the 20-plus years he’s been digging graves, despite making efforts to be as careful as possible.
“It bothers you,” he said, adding he has become used to it. “I hate to disturb anybody.”
When Bartsch and another volunteer prepare a grave — a backhoe does almost all the work — in some spots they don’t know if a body is buried there or not.
Bartsch, who fears running into another grave, said he was “ecstatic” that the grave-mapping project was undertaken.
“I imagine every cemetery in southern Alberta, or northern Alberta, would probably benefit by it,” he said.
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