Saving gravestones

It’s Day 3 of a four-day Mayworkshop at Canada’s oldest National Historic Site and it’s gone from theory to practice as Golnaz Karimi snips roots and later tackles the moss and lichen on the massive stone itself. Biological growth is literally eating these stones, and along with help from project partner Mapannapolis, Parks Canada is making a plan to clean and preserve some of the oldest grave markers in North America.

Karimi is a built heritage advisor with Parks Canada. She comes from a conservation and architecture background and is an advisor for the Nova Scotia Field Unit. She came to Fort Anne to look at the Garrison Graveyard.

“The main goal of this workshop this week is that we develop this protocol, so it’s not just ‘let’s go start this work and clean the stones,’ but we’re developing a protocol and we’re investing in maintenance of the site,” Karimi said. “And we’re not only using in-house expertise, like Parks Canada staff, to do this work. The main purpose of this workshop is to provide that training to our maintenance staff, but also to volunteers, so local volunteers and our maintenance staff can do the maintenance work and the cleaning in the future.”

Golnaz Karimi returned to the Garrison Graveyard for a second round of grave stone cleaning June 22 through the 24th, 2022. Local Parks Canada staff and volunteers, some from Mapannapolis, took part in getting their hands dirty for a good cause.

For more on this historic graveyard, see the Mapannapolis storymap here.

Photographs and text by Lawrence Powell.