Nova Scotia’s Pioneer Cemeteries Are Disappearing, but Not Without a Fight

Steve Skafte, a photographer and writer based in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, works to stabilize a grave marker in a small, long-abandoned cemetery in West Paradise, N.S. on Oct. 21, 2021. The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan

A secluded and overgrown cemetery in rural Cape Breton, the final resting place for some of Nova Scotia’s earliest settlers, is slowly crumbling into a nearby river.

“They would be descendants of the Scots ... who came over here and settled,” says Bruce Morrison, warden of Victoria County, where fishing and tourism are the main employers. “There’s no simple solution to this. It’s isolated. It’s remote.”