ALL SOULS
AT MOUNTAIN VIEW CEMETERY
2005 to 2024
HONOURING OLD TRADITIONS | CREATING NEW ONES
“The departed they visit us in dreams. They glide above our memories like shadows over streams.”
– Quote on a headstone in Mountain View Cemetery
Honouring our dead with community rituals of remembrance is a global tradition.
For many cultures around the world, the days at the end of October and beginning of November are considered an important time for remembering the dead in our lives, through ceremony and celebration, and the practical maintenance of the family gravesites. Customs include cleaning and decorating graves, feasts, flowers, lanterns, and candles.
In our modern, urban, and relatively transient culture, traditional “village” customs have been left behind, though not the human impulses and needs that led to these traditions.
From 2005 – 2024, Mountain View Cemetery invited the public to come and remember their dead, in an atmosphere of contemplative beauty, whether buried at Cemetery or not. As a non-denominational sacred event, All Souls offered an opportunity for people to share their own customs and experiences, and create their own traditions.
Held during the last days of October, we provided public shrines, materials for the creation of personal memorials, and other opportunities for people to write messages, light candles, and speak the names of the dead. Often there was live music, and small fires to gather around.
The event was opened at sundown with prayers and a Swedish Fire – a vertical log that would burn throughout the evening- and closed with a procession to the shrines on November 1st.
The candles at the shrines were kept lit until the morning of November 2nd, when the written messages and memorials would be gathered up and the names read out loud, before being burned in a closing fire.
All Souls at Mountain View Cemetery was part of the revival of the role of this urban cemetery in the life of an increasingly secular and multi-cultural community. It became an important annual tradition for people from many different cultural backgrounds and traditions, from young families who embraced the event as an opportunity to introduce the subject of mortality to their children, to the recently bereaved who have their children, parents, partners and friends interred at MVC.
In 2024, Mountain View Cemetery and The City of Vancouver decided to end the All Souls event. Their stated plan was to “ take time to review our protocols for supporting artist-led sacred events.
Ending All Souls was not our choice. We sincerely hope that people for whom it has become an important annual ceremony will keep their traditions alive in their own way. We hope the Cemetery will be responsive to future initiatives from artists and members of the public who value the importance of ceremony in our daily lives.
About All Souls
All Souls at Mountain View Cemetery was conceived by artists Paula Jardine & Marina Szijarto. Over the years, they have been joined by others who have shared their love and regard for their dead.
Events
The events occurring during All Souls at Mountain View Cemetery have included music, art, poetry and other creative expressions and the opportunity for the creation of personal shrines and memorials.
Photos
Since its inception, many wonderful photographs have been taken at All Souls at Mountain View Cemetery of the events, the community, the installations and the art both by professionals and by attendees.
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About Mountain View Cemetery
Mountain View Cemetery, located at Fraser Street and East 39th Avenue, opened in 1886 and is the only public cemetery within Vancouver. Owned and operated by the City of Vancouver, the Cemetery is an important civic space and provides interment options and event space. The cemetery is a reflection of Vancouver’s history, serving as the final resting place of almost 150,000 people, including several past mayors, veterans from World Wars, and people representing varied faiths, ethnicities, ages and contributions to Vancouver’s past, present and future.
For more information on the cemetery, visit: vancouver.ca/mountainview .