Dawn Phelps
Columnist
I am truly not an authority on burials in Alaska or other places in the far north where the ground freezes down to six feet during the winter months due to 40-degree-below temperatures. But in the past, my little sister Joanie told me a little about the winter burials in Fairbanks where she lived and worked for over forty years as a radiology technologist.
She died in 2021, but I still remember her story of how the grave was dug for her friend Henry, a native Alaskan. (I recently submitted two columns about Henry’s funeral, using an older letter from my sister Joan as my source.)
I remember Joan telling me that Henry’s family and friends built a fire on the ground where Henry’s grave was to be dug. She said that when a layer of soil was thawed, the men would dig, set fires again, then dig a little deeper until the grave was deep enough. Even though six feet down is ideal, sometimes 3-4 feet deep is acceptable in Alaska.
My interest in the burial subject intensified when Tom and I and my brother and his friend Mary went to Alaska for Joanie’s funeral in the first week of June 2022. She had died on October 29, 2021, a little over seven months prior, and then the waiting began.
Immediately after Joan’s unexpected death, her daughter planned a service for Joan, but we did not go then. But we waited until spring when the cemeteries were reopened. (Cemeteries in Fairbanks usually shut down for burials as early as October 1 and do not reopen until Memorial Day because of the snow and ice.)
A few years before her death, Joan had prepaid for a mausoleum in a cemetery, so she did not need to have a grave dug. She had also had a plaque made for her mausoleum that read, “The best is yet to come.” She, like I, believed there’s a better place awaiting us someday.
I thought Joan’s body would be kept at a funeral home in cold storage until spring arrived. So, when we went to Alaska for the funeral, I was shocked when my niece Lori, Joan’s daughter, drove us by an outdoor building in a field not far from the road and told us, “That’s where Mom is.” She seemed matter-of-fact, but I believe she had become accustomed to the Alaskan burial practices since she had lived there most of her life.
The building had rows and rows of drawers that we could see from the road. For Lori, it was not unusual, but I felt conflicting emotions when I realized my sweet little sister’s body was in that isolated building in a field.
It also bothered me that, by then, the weather was pleasant. And there was no electricity to the building, and the cooling was provided only by Mother Nature. I told my husband Tom, who had been a funeral director, “I wonder if there are regulations about storing bodies outside when the weather starts to get warmer.
Recently I read a little more about Alaska’s laws and practices. I found that people can be buried on their own property with a few stipulations. For example, the grave should not be above or near water, should not be too close to a neighbor’s property, and at least 3-4 feet deep.
One article spoke about the massive size of Alaska and how the weather varies from extreme cold in Fairbanks and further north, yet the weather is milder, for example near Anchorage. There are also areas where it is difficult to find suitable burial sites because of marshlands where waters and rivers converge.
I also learned there are many other places in the world where bodies must be held for months before burial. In Fairbanks, the cemeteries are usually open for about 3-4 months, roughly June to Oct. And there are other locations in the world where bodies must wait for burial as in Alaska—Canada, Maine, Minnesota, Iceland, and Labrador, for example.
Since the ground is sometimes frozen six feet down, sometimes the diggers place a propane burner under a rectangular metal dome for 24-48 hours to help thaw the ground. Or some start pounding the rock-hard ground with jackhammers, followed by especially tough back hoes or machines that can dig deeper.
I also learned that some buildings in the far north are called Dead Houses or Mort Houses. They were built to store the dead until the cemeteries are reopened in the spring. Out of necessity, bodies were stored in barns or sheds, and in Ontario Canada, octagonal buildings with drawers provided spaces for bodies the 1800s.
I guess my search for information helped me realize why the burial practices in a place like Alaska are different from ours in the “Lower 48,” mostly due to the extreme 40-below temperatures in the winter.
I guess with knowledge, I have a little more understanding, maybe even acceptance, about Alaska’s burials in the cold, cold ground.
