Natural, Green and Conservation Burial in British Columbia

Natural / Green Burial

nikolafinch@outlook.com (Nicola Finch) — Wed, 29 May 2024 20:52:59 GMT

Giving our Bodies to the Earth as Directly as Possible.

Mary Oliver wrote, "Doesn't everything die, at last and too soon?"*

Our people die. Our animals die.

And then there is the body.

There are all the other things too: grief, relief, paperwork, clean up, ceremony, family, finances; but most immediately, the physical body of our dead must be taken care of.

In Funeral Services it’s called ‘Final Disposition or Body Disposition’ which implies that we are disposing of the body of our beloved person. Like so much trash.

Perhaps, as Walt Patrick of Herland Forest says, we could approach this sacred task as ‘the transformation of a body into the basis for renewed growth.’

Natural (Green / Conservation) burial is how we can accomplish that. Giving our bodies to the earth as directly as possible.

Most of us know in our bones what it means to have a natural burial. We aren't so far removed from a time when it was just called burial. A simple, direct, placing of our loved one in a pine box (probably made by the family or community), a walk to the graveyard (often on the family farm) and a grave (dug by strong backs). There would have been time spent with the deceased at home, time to wash and dress and tend to the person who was alive such a short time ago. Time to process the passing. Time to gather, and time to say goodbye.

While most of us these days are choosing cremation (almost 90% in BC,) we also desire a place of remembrance. Somewhere our loved one's ashes can buried or scattered, somewhere we can return to, somewhere beautiful in nature – a place to visit, to walk, to remember. We don’t have to resort to soulless columbarium’s that look like community mailboxes. Most Natural Burial Grounds are accommodating ashes in an ecologically beneficial way.

A natural burial is not going to be everyone's choice, nor should it be. What happens to our bodies once we're dead is personal, but it matters. Natural burial should be an easily accessible option to anyone in the province who wants it. Natural burial grounds could be encouraged as our municipal cemeteries fill and need expansion.

We could reopen some of our pioneer cemeteries to embrace green burials.

We could change the laws in BC that say we can’t have a family plot on our own land, at least not without considerable expense and mind-boggling bureaucracy.

Natural burial grounds could ease the burden of having to build more and more facilities to ‘dispose’ of our dead no matter how ‘environmentally friendly’ those disposition methods might be. Facilities, equipment, power, fuel, water, maintenance; little of that is necessary if we simply return to the basics.

Dig a hole where the land needs nourishment.

Lay down a bed of moss and wildflowers.

Bury our beloved dead.

Naturally.

*The Summer Day. By Mary Oliver

Published in "Local Dirt Magazine" an annual print and online magazine in the Cariboo Region, packed with stories and info about local destinations, food, farms, producers, ranches, and so much more!" In this Summer 2024 issue, the 'so much more' includes my article on Natural Burial. Read it online and be sure to check out the other great articles.
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/7b6db648eb.html#page/26

Amendments to Funeral Regulations in BC

nikolafinch@outlook.com (Nicola Finch) — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 22:42:10 GMT

In British Columbia "-an individual may perform the functions

of a funeral provider and funeral director in a remote service area-"

If you live in rural BC away from major centers, do you know what your options are when someone you love dies?
Did you know that in British Columbia it is legal for families to bring or keep their loved one home until time of disposition?
If your person dies at home and it’s an expected death, do you know you can just take your time with them? You can keep them at home for a few hours or even a few days if you want to have a home funeral.
You can transport them from a hospital to your home if you so desire.
Do you know that YOU can legally transport your deceased loved one from your home to a funeral home if said funeral service provider accepts direct transfers?
Are you aware of what your local funeral home charges for transport? (Ask for a current price list of services.)
If you live more than 200km from the nearest funeral home, on rough roads, it is legal for someone other than a funeral director to act as a funeral director. (See Exemption from Act below)
All these things require planning and paper work. It’s never as simple as it sounds and there are caveats with each of these things. But it’s all possible and legal.

You only get one crack at this. If what happens to your loved one’s body once they die matters to you and to them - now is the time to ask questions and plan!

Exemption from Act — remote service area

36.1 (1)

In this section:

"designated area" means the area within the perimeter boundary of a regional district and, for greater certainty, includes municipalities within that perimeter boundary;

"electoral area" means an electoral area in a regional district as specified by the letters patent for the regional district;

"remote service area" means a municipality or an electoral area that

(a)

is not accessible in all seasons by a highway that goes from the municipality or electoral area to the business location of the licensed funeral director in closest proximity to the municipality or electoral area, and

(b)

is at least 200 km by highway or ferry from the business location of the licensed funeral director in closest proximity to the municipality or electoral area.

(2)

On the approval of the director, an individual may perform the functions of a funeral provider and funeral director in a remote service area as indicated in a resolution referred to in subsection (3) (a) (i) or (ii).

(3)

An individual seeking the director's approval under subsection (2) to perform the functions of a funeral provider and funeral director in a remote service area must

(a)

submit to the director,

(i)

if the remote service area is a municipality, a resolution of the council of the municipality in support of the individual performing the functions of a funeral provider and funeral director in the municipality, or

(ii)

if the remote service area is an electoral area in a regional district, a resolution of the board of the regional district in support of the individual performing the functions of a funeral provider and funeral director in the electoral area, and

(b)

authorize a criminal record check or a criminal record check verification, as applicable, under the Criminal Records Review Act .

(4)

If approval is given by the director under subsection (2) the individual is exempt from the obligation to be licensed as a funeral provider and as a funeral director under section 55 (1) of the Act in the remote service area for a period of up to 3 years, as determined by the director, which period begins on the date of the director's approval.

(5)

No more than 2 individuals may be exempt from the obligation to be licensed as a funeral provider and as a funeral director under section 55 (1) of the Act within a designated area.

[en. B.C. Reg. 121/2019, s. 3.]

Natural Burial.

nikolafinch@outlook.com (Nicola Finch) — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 22:45:37 GMT

Speaking up for Green Options

Article published in the Green Gazette Magazine June 7th 2021.

by Nicola Finch –

Death has been a hot topic in these pandemic times. Perhaps you’ve considered your own death or worried about people you love dying. More people have been actively engaging in conversations about death and dying. More people have been getting their end-of-life planning in order. These conversations naturally include decisions about disposition—what you want done with your body when you die.

Burial and cremation are the two options we currently have in BC. Our population is aging and, naturally, dying. We are also dealing with increased deaths from the opioid crisis and the pandemic. Seventy-five percent of British Columbians are choosing cremation and BC needs more crematoriums. In many communities, funeral providers are having to transport our deceased loved ones to the nearest crematorium, which can be hundreds of kilometers away. Some are even transported over the border to a crematorium in the United States. In Smithers, the nearest crematorium is a 250 km drive to Terrace. Conventional (fire) cremation is the only option we have. So far. There is growing support from within the funeral industry and from the public to allow for a gentler, more environmentally friendly cremation process known as alkaline hydrolysis or aquamation/resomation. Natural organic reduction or human composting is another option that is gaining support, but these changes will not happen quickly or easily without pressure from the public.

There are two stand alone green burial cemeteries in BC; however, only one of these (on Salt Spring Island) is open to the public. Denman Island’s Natural Burial Cemetery is limited to past or current residents of the island. There are nine hybrid green burial sites within conventional cemeteries in BC. Most of our cemeteries are managed by our municipalities. There is no green burial option in the municipal cemeteries of Williams Lake or Quesnel.

Green burial (also known as natural burial) is nothing new. It’s as old as human civilization. At its most basic, green burial means no embalming, no grave liner or vault, and direct earth burial in a biodegradable container or shroud. But it is so much more than that. Those who prefer a green burial often prefer the idea of a home or family led funeral. This is a more hands-on approach to death where family and friends are reclaiming the whole process of dying and tending to our own beloved dead.

Green burial grounds are also importantly about protecting sensitive ecosystems and preserving the land in perpetuity. When I talk about this aspect of natural burial, I feel the weight of Indigenous grief. This land we call BC is covered with sacred burial grounds that have not been protected, honoured, or preserved. We have built our houses, our shopping malls, and our industrial plants on the bones of native people, and we continue to disregard and disrespect these sacred places. Our government protects our settler graveyards, but ancient Indigenous burial sites do not fall under this same protection. We have much work to do.

Establishing a new green burial cemetery in British Columbia is no different than establishing a conventional cemetery. All cemeteries answer to the regulatory body of Consumer Protection BC. Creating a new natural burial cemetery is expensive, complicated, time consuming, but doable.

One day, I hope to see a stand alone green burial cemetery available to every community in BC and a range of earth friendly disposition options available to all British Columbians. These changes will not happen, though, without pressure from the public. Until more natural burial grounds are established, we can, at the very least, lobby our local municipalities to include hybrid green burial sites in our municipal cemeteries. It doesn’t require a huge area of the cemetery. Some hybrid green burial sites have been created on less than an acre of land.

We have to ask or it won’t happen.

Call your municipal office, your city hall, your town council, or your regional district office, and ask to speak to the person in charge of cemeteries. Ask if you can have a green burial in your local cemetery. If the answer is no, ask if green burial is being discussed and if they have an idea of when you might expect to have a green burial option available locally. That’s it. It’s that easy. We just need to ask and keep asking.

Visit this page for more information on How You Can Help

Disposition Options in BC

nikolafinch@outlook.com (Nicola Finch) — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 19:44:30 GMT

You're Dead. Now what?

Published in the June 2022 Issue of the Green Gazette Magazine

By Nicola Finch –

If you care about the health of the planet, then what happens to your body once you are dead matters. It’s called disposition.

Our disposition options in British Columbia are limited. We currently have only two choices. Flame cremation or burial. Conventional burial is what most municipal cemeteries offer.

Your city’s website will have a cemetery section that lists the bylaws and current pricing for burial plots, along with fees for opening and closing the plot, optional headstone placement fees, a fee for the grave liner or vault (required by bylaw in municipal cemeteries), and, in at least seven BC communities—Penticton, Prince George, Parksville, South Surrey, Cache Creek, Powell River, and Chilliwack—green burial is also an option. When a green burial option is available within a municipal or conventional cemetery, plots are generally the same price as conventional burial plots; however, there is no requirement for grave liners or vaults, and individual headstones are not used in green burial sections. Most First Nations communities in BC can accomplish what we call a green burial because their cemeteries are self-governed, without the requirement for vaults or grave liners.

We are fortunate in BC to have several beautiful green burial cemeteries. Royal Oak Burial Park on Vancouver Island offers Woodlands for Green Burial; there’s Denman Island Natural Burial Cemetery, Canada’s first contemporary green burial cemetery (available only to current or past residents of Denman Island); and now, Salt Spring Island Natural Cemetery, the first stand alone natural burial cemetery open to the public in Canada.

Currently, however, the most popular disposition choice in British Columbia is cremation. We have the highest cremation rate in North America at about 87 percent. There are as many reasons for choosing cremation as there are people making those decisions. Each family will decide what is best for them. There is, however, a popular misconception that flame cremation is ‘greener’ than conventional burial. In reality, the cremation process releases significant levels of carbon dioxide into the air. Vaporized mercury is also released from fillings in teeth. Carbon emissions released during a single cremation are equal to about two full tanks of gas for a standard vehicle.

Flame cremation is problematic, and in BC we do not have enough crematoriums to meet the demand that is upon us as our aging Baby Boomer population dies. Nor should we build more crematoriums when we have greener, gentler alternatives readily available, but not yet legal in BC. Aquamation is legal in four Canadian provinces and one territory. Alkaline hydrolysis, aka aquamation, is a water-based, sustainable method of disposition that combines a gentle water flow, even temperature, and alkalinity to accelerate the breakdown of organic material. It uses 90 percent less energy than flame cremation. There are no harmful greenhouse gases, no burning of fossil fuels, and no mercury by-product.

BC needs to offer this alternative to provide more individual end-of-life choices, to help lessen climate change effects, which we are seeing all around us, and to prepare for the demographics of Baby Boomers’ deaths over the next 20 years. For more information and to sign a petition to legalize aquamation in BC, please visit the Aquamation BC Coalition at aquamationbc.ca .

Another option that is not yet being offered in Canada but is legal in three states at the time of this writing is natural organic reduction. Natural organic reduction or NOR—naturally and gently transforming human remains into soil in an environmentally-controlled facility—was pioneered in the United States by Katrina Spade and is now being offered in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado. But organically composting life is something humans have always done. NOR can be done very simply and accomplished with minimal harm to the environment. Herland Forest (herlandforest.org) in Washington is a wonderful, off-grid example of human composting. Return Home ( returnhome.com ), also in Washington, offers an indoor facility for what they are calling terramation (gently transforming human remains into life giving soil). Katrina Spade’s Recompose ( recompose.life ) is up and running in Washington, as well.

Providing greener, gentler disposition options is essential to the health of our planet. Take time to consider your options and raise your voice for greener end-of-life options in BC.

Nicola Finch lives off-grid in a remote area west of Williams Lake. She and her husband are co-owners of Touch Wood Rings. They offer custom handcrafted wooden rings, including wooden memorial rings inlaid with the ashes of a loved one. Nicola’s passion is holistic end-of-life care. She is a Death Doula and an advocate for greener, gentler end-of-life options. She also sits on the Aquamation BC Coalition Advisory Board.

Contact nicola@greenburialbc.ca

My pile of bones without a home

nikolafinch@outlook.com (Nicola Finch) — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 22:15:39 GMT

Why I care about having a beautiful and sacred place to remember our beloved dead.

My Pile of Bones without a Home

Why I care about having a beautiful and sacred place to remember our beloved dead.

by Nicola Finch

I came to an understanding when I was quite young, that grief and loss were part of life.

My mother grieved the death of her father.

I knew into the depth of my being that her grief was a big part of who she was. And that she had a magnificent capacity for love.

My mom's dad; Harold Fletcher, wore a beguiling smile in the little black and white photograph that sat on my mother's dresser. And that was all I knew of him. That photograph and her stories.

Harold died from a brain tumor when my Mom was 16. He was her whole world.

As he neared death, they took him into the hospital. I learned that Harold asked to be propped up on his last trip past the lake he loved, and they hadn't done that. They were worried it would cause him pain.

Harold was buried in a graveyard on a hillside in the Okanagan Valley. He was buried with his feet pointing uphill, and this forever disturbed my dear mom.

The theme of that story was regret.

I learned that death and disposition can and often should be done differently.

I didn't grow up on a farm. Our family wasn't big on pets. My experience of death and grief was a visceral thing and it was allowed to exist. It came to the table and we heard it's stories.

Generational grief woven into family stories is akin to learning from your mother how to make pastry or a decent loaf of bread. It's all about repetition and memory.

I remember the deaths of my granddad, my uncles, my Nana and my grandmother. I remember when my mom's best friend died and when my teenage sisters boyfriend was killed in a car accident.

My brother took his own life when he was just 29. My mom died when she was 58.

My dad was 70 when he died. My brother Michael's suicide was my Munch moment.

A shock of primal, overwhelming horror. His death was my Scream.

Michael was the shining star of our family of six. He was extremely intelligent, quick witted, funny, passionate, a talented writer and artist and our best beloved. When he took his own life it ripped our hearts out, broke us wide open and none of us would ever be the same.

We would do our grieving together as a family. We cleaned his blood soaked apartment together. We sorted his belongings together.

We made the phone calls. We wrote his funeral service. My dad built his sons pine box in the underground parking of the apartment building mom and dad managed. We strapped that long tall coffin on top of Mike's lime green mini and delivered it to the funeral home. We tucked precious notes and little gifts in the pine box alongside our beautiful boy.

We sent out invitations and delivered the service. We sang the songs.

We sent Michael into the fire. He came back to us as bone and ash.

We sewed small leather pouches to share his ashes, and to keep some.

We hired a boat and scattered most of his ashes out beyond English Bay.

We did everything the best way we knew how.

We did our mom proud too when her time came.

And our dad. Cath; well, that was difficult.

And There Is. No. Memorial. For any of them.

No single place to visit the memory or the bones of my beloved brother or my mother or my father. And last year I added my sister Catherine to my pile of bones without a home.

That's my impetus.

To create a beautiful place of remembrance. For Natural Burials and for cremated remains.

For my family and for yours.

Contact

Nicola Finch PO Box 4744, Williams Lake, BC, Canada V2G2V7

Email: nicola@greenburialbc.ca or nicola@deathtalk.ca

Websites

Memorial Rings

Cariboo Community Deathcare

Green Burial Terminology

Wed, 06 Dec 2017 22:05:32 GMT

A 'Green Burial' Basic Terminology guide

from " Seven Ponds ~ Embracing the End-of-Life Experience"

Seven Ponds is an excellent resource. They describe themselves as a group of creative and passionate San Francisco Bay Area locals who came together to build a company around the inevitability that each and every one of us must face, death." This terminology is also used and accepted in Canada.

Conservation Burial

A green burial on a so-called Conservation Burial Site, that is, land that is protected by an independent steward, such as a land trust, which oversees the conservation easement and performs ongoing monitoring and reporting.

Conservation Burial Ground

Highest level of certification by the Green Burial Council. Along with meeting the requirements for a Natural Burial Ground, the area must protect an area of land and further the goal of land conservation.

Cremation

Incineration of remains, within a specially designed furnace, at temperatures ranging from 1400°F to 2000°F for 2 to 3 hours, followed by the pulverizing of the remaining bone-ash fragments into a uniform size and consistency.

Green Burial/Natural Burial

Method of burial that does not inhibit decomposition and furthers conservation of the area. Embalming and use of other chemicals are not permitted, and the body is wrapped in a shroud, enclosed in a biodegradable casket, or buried with neither.

Green Cemetery

Site for green or natural burial. No permanent structures (i.e. headstones, paved roads, mausoleums) are added to the site, in order to conserve the natural landscape. The Green Burial Council specifies three levels of conservation for green cemeteries: hybrid burial ground, natural burial ground, and conservation burial ground.

Natural, Green and Conservation Burial in British Columbia

Natural / Green Burial

Giving our Bodies to the Earth as Directly as Possible.

Amendments to Funeral Regulations in BC

In British Columbia "-an individual may perform the functions

of a funeral provider and funeral director in a remote service area-"

Exemption from Act — remote service area

Natural Burial.

Speaking up for Green Options

Disposition Options in BC

You're Dead. Now what?

My pile of bones without a home

Why I care about having a beautiful and sacred place to remember our beloved dead. ﻿

Green Burial Terminology

Why I care about having a beautiful and sacred place to remember our beloved dead.