The things you see in an old cemetery when it is frozen over.
My dad used to joke that an ATM should be installed at his graveside so people will have another reason to visit.
Some cemeteries, especially older ones that are geographically located within a community, are often visited for reasons other than their central function. It’s an obvious place to be inspired and reflect on ones own mortality, the passage of time, decay, beauty, sadness and our ephemeral existence. Or in the case of its younger visitors, to hold hands and reaffirm to themselves how alive they are.
On a few of my visits to the Toronto Necropolis, situated in Cabbagetown where I live, I saw young couples strolling, retirees holding hands, families with their babies and dogs as well as visitors to the grave site of a relative or a friend they now miss or long for.
Perched on the edge of the Don Valley it offers a treasure trove of photographic subjects, textures and context. Its one reason I return here often when in need of a photographic fix to be reliably satiated.
Most interned here are a generation or two away from obscurity, even the more famous of them: Thornton Blackburn – a former slave who made his way to Canada on the "Underground Railroad" and established the first cab company in Toronto, or Jack Layton a leader of the New Democratic Party and George Brown the founder of the Globe and Mail.
And so it is.
