Andy McCracken, a septuagenarian, takes a moment before dialing his late father’s number on an old rotary phone on a sunny day in late July. Inside a small wooden structure next to a graveyard in Alberta’s Rocky Mountain foothills, he communicates on a “wind phone,” a symbolic connection for the living to converse with the deceased.
The wind phone overlooks the valley of a former coal mining community, now a deserted town reclaimed by nature. Situated at Mountain Park Cemetery in Yellowhead County, the highest elevation burial ground in Canada, the site now hosts the highest elevation wind phone in North America, almost 1,900 meters above sea level, installed by Yellowhead County at the end of July.
When the time comes for Andy and Anne McCracken to be laid to rest, their ashes will join the Mountain Park Cemetery. The couple, residing in Edson, Alberta, are eligible for a plot due to Andy’s birth in a Coal Branch town near Mountain Park, where his father served as the mine doctor.
Expressing gratitude to his father for his birth in Luscar, Alberta, in 1953 and the joy of living in the mountains, Andy McCracken bids farewell and sends greetings to his mother through the wind phone.
Mountain Park was founded in 1911 as the terminus of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway line, which ceased operations in 1950 when the coal mine shut down. The community once housed around 1,000 inhabitants in 100 residences. Today, only the cemetery remains, with 269 documented burials dating back to 1913.
During an interview with CBC News at the cemetery, Madison Sharman, Yellowhead County’s heritage co-ordinator, pointed out a faint “Y” shape now covered in vegetation, marking where the train tracks diverged. Without road access during the mine’s operation, the train was the town’s sole link to the outside world.
Residents of Mountain Park found entertainment in the remote wilderness, organizing foot races up Mount Baldy and trekking an hour and a half to the nearby hamlet of Cadomin for community dances on weekend nights.
Despite the romanticized image of living in the subalpine with limited connectivity, Mountain Park Cemetery narrates tales of frontier struggles, evident through infant burial sites and tragic events like the Spanish flu pandemic and mining accidents that claimed lives.
Pat Rausch, visiting the cemetery since 1963, reflects on the hardships of the past, including the devastating impacts of the Spanish flu and mining accidents on the community.
Acknowledging the efforts of volunteers in restoring the cemetery, Anne McCracken finds solace in selecting a resting place with a picturesque view of Cheviot Mountain, expressing contentment in the thought of being laid to rest in a serene setting.
Andy McCracken, a nature enthusiast and former park ranger, views his future resting place as a return to his roots, surrounded by the mountains where he was born and where his father once explored.
Yellowhead County now oversees Mountain Park Cemetery, preserving the history of those interred there while accommodating new cremation burials for local residents. Notable individuals, such as Frank and Agnes Lovsin and John Mitchell, rest in the cemetery, each with a unique story to tell.
In the wind phone booth, a poem by Madison Sharman conveys a message of enduring love and memories spoken into the wind, integrating each story as part of the landscape once more.