SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Norm Glowach has always known he has an uncle buried at Back Bay cemetery but by the time he learned his half-brother was also interred there, their grave markers could no longer be found.

Norm Glowach has written a song memorializing his late uncle Raymond Lessard, also a musician, who died of pneumonia in 1946 at age 17. Lessard is one of two relatives of Glowach's buried at Back Bay cemetery, although the location of the graves is unknown. - photo courtesy of Norman Glowach

Back Bay stories Part 3 of 3: Yellowknifer looks at the history of the city's oldest cemetery.

Glowach - who has worked at NWT archives for the last 17 years - said he grew up hearing stories about his uncle Raymond Lessard - his mother's brother who died of pneumonia in 1946. Glowach said he realized his mother's one-year-old son - Gerard Lessard - had been buried in the city's first cemetery around the same time, after he found a death certificate listing the name Gerard 'Lessart' about 15 years ago.

Glowach said the child's cause of death was redacted from the death certificate but he isn't surprised by the censorship since the death happened during a time of war. He traced the records and found his half-brother was at the cemetery as well.

"It's right around the same time (at the end of the war)," he said, adding infant deaths were common in the early days of the city.

"I don't think they had a lot of drugs here," he said. "I know that (Dr. Oliver) Stanton was here, and he was the one that signed the death certificate for Gerard."

Glowach said his family came to the city in 1939, when his grandfather - Louis Lessard - bought the Rex Cafe on Latham Island.

"My mother would tell stories about how (Raymond) used to like to play guitar," said Glowach. "He and my uncle Bud would play guitar and sing."

Glowach, a musician himself, said photos of his young uncle tell a sad story.

"The pictures we have of him when he was alive, he's just a young kid. He's full of life," he said. "He was very well liked, apparently, and a good looking kid, so I'm sure the gals and stuff liked him."

He said he often thinks about his uncle, and memorialized him in a song.

"I've written a song about him that comes up in my mind every once in a while," he said. "17 years is not a lot. If somebody asked me about myself if I only had 17 years, there wouldn't be a lot to say. It's a nice tribute to the pain and suffering of the family and of my grandparents in losing their son at such a young age."

Glowach said he and his sisters visited the cemetery two years ago to search for the graves but didn't find them.

"The grave markers, they're (both) gone," he said.

In the 1990s the city carried out emergency repair work and ultimately moved some graves from Back Bay to the newer Lakeview Cemetery, because erosion caused by a creek running past the burial site from Jackfish Lake exposed some of the graves.

Grant White - the city's director of community services - said the exposed graves were moved to Lakeview Cemetery in 1993 and 1999. He said none of the graves which were exposed were marked, so it's impossible to know if Glowach's relatives were among those moved.

Glowach said he doesn't remember hearing about the move but when he visited the site it became clear that Raymond and Gerard's graves - which were among the last dug in the cemetery - would have been right in the area worst affected by erosion. He said he doesn't remember hearing that the city moved graves but whether Raymond and Gerard were among them or not, he is doubtful that anything remains of the bodies put under the ground more than 60 years ago.

"I have my doubts whether there's anything left," he said. "Even with permafrost and all the rest of it - and I don't think there's any permafrost there anyway - that coupled with the fox dens, I don't think there's any bones left."

Glowach said he thinks the pioneer cemetery is a beautiful spot but he and his family members would like to see the graves moved elsewhere.

"I'm of the view if they could take it and set up a nice plot, since they're coming to the end of Lakeview, to find a nice place there and put up a plaque saying this is from a pioneer cemetery on Back Bay," he said.

White said the work done so far has focused on moving plots affected by erosion and fox damage and consideration has not been given to moving the rest of the graves at Back Bay cemetery.

"And I don't anticipate that changing in the future," he said.

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