Old Men's Cemetery (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

TREE ABORETUM

B.C. pioneers properly memorialized at Kamloops’ Old Men’s Provincial Cemetery

Sep 22, 2023 | 4:23 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops’ Old Men’s Home opened its doors in September, 1895. It came two years after the provincial government passed an act to establish a provincial home for the aged and infirm. In 1922, the need arose for a cemetery which, now more than 100 years later, sits along Sixth Avenue. While the home no longer stands, the legacy of the men is now forever marked on plaques around the newly-created tree arboretum.

The men buried at the Old Men’s Provincial Cemetery in Kamloops were fur trappers, loggers, miners, ranchers, railway workers, bridge and road builders, many of whom came to Canada in the hopes of a better live, and passed away after helping shape the infancy of our province.

“Some of them were the original discoverers of gold. There was a young man, James Moore, on his 26th birthday discovered Hills Bar on the Lower Fraser. Hills Bar became the richest find in whole entire history of B.C. gold. Moore arrived here in his ’80s, penniless and broken,” said Frank Dwyer, who helped lead the initiative.

The park serves as the final resting place for over 1,000 men from more than 30 countries, including some as far as eastern Europe and Asia, who lived out their final days at the Kamloops Old Men’s Home around the turn of the 20th Century.

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“There are other pioneers and people here who helped found cities, who were aldermen, who have towns named after them in British Columbia — and who made notable discoveries. For many of them, it mostly evaporated and the merchants were left with the riches in the end for most of them,” said Dwyer.

One of those men was John Likely, namesake of Likely, B.C.

Bringing the space and new tree arboretum back to its former glory was a joint mission by the Sagebrush Neighbourhood Association and the City of Kamloops.

“Over the 100-or-so years, a lot of their names were really deep in the provincial archives, and the grave markers and their names were lost. The effort of my staff and the Sagebrush Neighbourhood Association to bring those folks back up and put them on signs and display them for future generations, I think, is pretty incredible,” added Jeff Putnam, City of Kamloops Parks and Civic Facilities Manager.

Dwyer used to walk through the park with his late wife, and in 2019 began the four-year process to revive the park. That walk is now adorned by new plaques honouring the men who forever rest beneath the grass.

“I had discovered how beautiful this place is, even in the state it was, that is one of the outstanding view points in Kamloops. And to be here in the late afternoon to early evening when the light slants across the beautiful trees that were here,” recalled Dwyer.

The ceremony concluded with a tree-planting to help signify the future growth of the 40 new trees at the park.