Cemetery plots at risk of falling into Lake Winnipeg

The long-term future of the Balsam Bay cemetery is being questioned due to its location. CTV’s Jon Hendricks explains.

The Balsam Bay Cemetery has been in operation for more than 130 years. Located next to Lake Winnipeg, generations of families are buried there.

But its long-term future is in doubt because of riverbank erosion.

“I guess the bank just keeps going away,” said Shane Thomas, a volunteer board member for the cemetery. “Eventually, our loved ones would start going over the bank towards the lake.”

The Rural Municipality (RM) of St. Clements, which took over ownership of the land in 2011, has been monitoring the situation for a few years now.

“We did take our engineer with us and our public works manager did do a review of the area and the site and determined that it wasn’t at immediate risk,” said Deepak Joshi, the RM’s chief administrative officer.

However, this also means the problem doesn’t qualify for provincial disaster financial assistance.

The cemetery, which operates purely on donations, doesn’t have the kind of money it would take to fix it.

“I figured around $100,000 would definitely fix it,” said Thomas. “But apparently, some government bodies are saying that’s way too low.”

The board is hoping money can be raised to not only save plots today, but ensure families in the area can continue to use the cemetery long into the future.