Jack Yee visits the Chinese cemetery in the Erlton neighborhood of southwest Calgary several times a year to pay tribute to his parents, who are buried there along with some of the city’s first Chinese immigrants, who arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Established in 1908, the cemetery is one of the oldest cultural cemeteries in the city, according to the City of Calgary.
Over the years, many of the original headstones have fallen into disrepaircollapsing due to its location or changing terrain.
“Chinese people value their cemetery because they are our ancestors and our loved ones before us,” Yee said. “We appreciate their efforts and try to build on their success to make it better for our community.”
As president and CEO of the Calgary Chinatown Development Foundation, Yee was involved in the City of Calgary’s efforts to restore and revitalize the historic cemetery.
At the beginning of the process, a feng shui According to Yee, the teacher was brought in from Vancouver to evaluate the cemetery grounds, after which it was determined that the site needed to be revitalized.
Over the past two summers, the city and hundreds of volunteers from the local Chinese community have protected 343 historic tombs and restored 177 monuments, reinstalling them on reinforced soil foundations.
Gary Daudlin, cemetery management lead for the City of Calgary, said revitalizing the cemetery is about “showing respect to the people who were buried here and ensuring that the next generations can come and see those particular graves and be able to understand the contributions of those people to our community.”
The restoration involved carefully removing and applying epoxy to the monuments to stabilize the cracks.
Community translators helped identify the inscriptions and made sure the stones were returned to the correct places.
Volunteers from Calgary’s Chinese community played a key role in revitalizing the cemetery, cleaning monuments and restoring grass by laying loam, planting, fertilizing and watering.
“We were getting interest from the entire community and they wanted to get involved,” Daudlin said. “And that made this project work.”
A memorial brought from China was also erected, celebrating the works carried out in the cemetery.
Honoring Calgary’s Chinese History
The city said the Erlton Chinese Cemetery “became a place dedicated to remembrance and community” at a time when Chinese residents were excluded from other cemeteries.
Chinese immigrants came to the city as early as the 1880s and developed three Chinatown locations in the following years.
In 1885, the federal government implemented a $50 head tax on any Chinese person wishing to enter Canada. It was raised to $100 in 1900 and then again to $500 in 1903, in an attempt to discourage Chinese immigrants from settling in the country.
The graves at Calgary’s Chinese Cemetery have been repaired and restored over the past two summers in a partnership between the city and hundreds of community members. The cemetery is the final resting place of Chinese immigrants who came to Calgary in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The discriminatory policy placed a significant burden on Chinese settlers, whose average annual salary was $300 at the time, with only about $43 left after living expenses, according to the city.
Despite this obstacle and many others who followedCalgary’s Chinese community grew and became an integral part of the city’s development.
“The revitalization of the Erlton Chinese Cemetery is an act of remembrance and respect,” District 7 incumbent Councilman Terry Wong said in a city news release.
“By honoring Calgary’s early Chinese pioneers, we recognize their struggles and contributions, while preserving a vital piece of our heritage and strengthening ties with the Chinese community for generations to come.”
