Slave Lake’s cemetery is getting crowded. The town is looking into establishing a new one, but in the meantime, it doesn’t want to get caught with no plots.
To ensure there’s enough space over the next couple of years, council has accepted a plan to limit the number of plots that can be reserved. The new policy, which is a temporary one, allows a surviving spouse to reserve a plot; also parents of a deceased dependent child. That’s it, and even that provision can be rescinded if it looks as if available plots will run out before the new cemetery opens.
“We’re averaging 25 burials a year,” the town’s operations manager Roger Borchert told council at its May 20 meeting.
Council had before it the results of a recent survey of the cemetery. It showed the original plan for the cemetery, overlayed by lines showing where the blocks of plots actually are; there’s considerable discrepancy. Borchert attributed it to one faulty measurement leading to many more. The result is a cemetery that is better left alone, for the most part.
“A new cemetery would be laid out completely differently than this,” he said, referring to the map. “The fellows (who dig the graves) have run into problems recently. It’s not easy.”
There are many blank plots on the cemetery map, which doesn’t mean nobody is buried there – just that it isn’t known. Borchert advised council not to think that those are available.
In fact, in the existing plan there are very few plots still available, even if someone did want to reserve them. One good result of the survey, however, was the identification of an area near the front of the cemetery that has room for 50 additional plots. A further 25 could be added to that, although they would be quite close to the fence.
Borchert said a new cemetery was possibly a couple of years away. Council appointed councillor Rob Chalmers to the steering committee for the new cemetery, with councillor Valerie Tradewell as an alternate. Councillor Laura Vanderwell Ross is already on the committee.

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