A research partnership with the University of Lethbridge is helping to locate missing graves in Vulcan County.
Research intern Paul Novoseltzev and a team of students, under the guidance of Dr. Craig Coburn (geography & environment), are using a remote aircraft to conduct the research. It is equipped with technology including thermal imaging, which allows the research to be conducted in a non-destructive and cost-effective way.
“We hope to be able to identify graves that may have been lost to time and, in the process, update municipal records and create detailed maps that will prevent future disturbances of these sacred sites,” Novoseltzev says.
According to the university, nearly all the required drone flights have been completed for the project and the data will help rural communities establish cemetery profiles on local geographic information systems, as well as identify lost graves and areas where further investigation is required.
Local history will also be reviewed to help understand the historical context of the findings.
“Unmarked graves have posed a significant challenge for rural communities for years. In Vulcan County, many of the cemeteries, which were associated with small towns, are now the responsibility of the municipalities and local service organizations to maintain, and many of these cemeteries have markers that have gone missing or were never recorded,” says Christopher Northcott with Vulcan County. “The absence of accurate records and mapping has not only hindered cemetery expansion but made it more likely for historical graves to be unintentionally disturbed during excavations.”
The project is funded in part by a $15,000 gift from Mitacs, a non-profit national research organization. The other half of the funding comes from Vulcan County and the villages of Carmangay, Lomond and Milo. The Carmangay Historical Society, Carmangay Agricultural Society, Lions Club of Lomond and the Lions Club of Milo all rallied to support the initiative and provided significant funding contributions.