better left unsaid

When I lived out west near gold-rush coun­try I used to find a ghost town in just about any direc­tion. I’d be out in the mid­dle of nowhere and find the creepi­est things. Heck, I’ve even spent the night all by myself in a ghost town. Creepy. So now that I live on the east coast where there’s a slightly longer his­tory, I was hop­ing to find some inter­est­ing aban­doned towns here. I haven’t been too suc­cess­ful with that mis­sion, but since I’m new around here, per­haps I’m not look­ing hard enough.

I did man­age to find Rox­bury though. Wasn’t hard as it’s right there on page 76 of the Hik­ing Trails of Nova Sco­tia book. It’s a bit of a hike to get in and back if you’re not an ATV — about 17km round-trip — and the trail can be a bit muddy in the spring and fall, but that’s what a good pair of boots are for. Nor­mally I’d just do this sort of thing by myself — there isn’t any­one lined up at my door to hike 17km in the mud, sur­pris­ingly — but I recruited a co-worker to make the jour­ney. So, off we went down the old road.

We made our way all the way to Rox­bury, and to the end of the “road” at Pleas­ant Lake, quite a beau­ti­ful spot. I can see why peo­ple lived here. Unfor­tu­nately, there’s not a lot left of the old town. The most notable fea­tures are the stone fence/walls that line the road for a good stretch. They’re a lit­tle creepy because you know they’re man-made, but they’re suf­fi­ciently old and grown over to appear like they’re there nat­u­rally. There are also open wells in the woods, so if you decide to go off-trail, make sure to keep your eyes glued to the ground. We came across one in what appeared to be an old yard, and though it wasn’t super deep, you wouldn’t want to fall in.

If you stick to the road you won’t see a whole lot, but if you do a lit­tle bush­whack­ing you can find what look to be old stone foun­da­tions and root cel­lars. Same kind of weird­ness as the man-made-but-grown-over feel­ing of the stone walls. But the best thing about mak­ing the hike to Rox­bury is the ceme­tery. To find the ceme­tery you need to take a side trail off the main road and hike about 200m over some fallen trees and around some bends. Noth­ing pro­vides a con­nec­tion to gen­er­a­tions gone like a ceme­tery. The stone walls and foun­da­tions are neat, but there’s no sign of peo­ple. See a head­stone stick­ing out of the ground in the mid­dle of the for­est and it’s an imme­di­ate holy crap peo­ple really did live here a hun­dred years ago feeling.

The ceme­tery is small and unkept but insanely inter­est­ing. There are only a few stones, the old­est dat­ing back to the mid-19th cen­tury. It’s a mix­ture of fas­ci­na­tion and sad­ness for me to find a place like this. It just feels so utterly for­got­ten. The point of putting up head­stones is to be remem­bered and these folks are so off the beaten track and seem­ingly uncared for it doesn’t quite feel right. Then again I should stop being so sentimental.

It doesn’t help the sentiment-reducing part of my brain to see a head­stone like this one. One that just says “BABY”. A small, unadorned stone with a sim­ple, almost cold inscrip­tion. When we came upon the ceme­tery a few of the stones had been moved and placed upright on trees, or in this case, another head­stone. It was late after­noon and the sun had come around and was get­ting low. I love this kind of light. As I kneeled next to this stone, all sorts of sto­ries and thoughts rac­ing around in my head, the let­ters on the stone mag­i­cally dark­ened. Alright I know, direct light plus sur­face depth equals shadow, but from the angle I was at I couldn’t read the inscrip­tion. Then, for just a moment, there it was.

§

Cam­era: Mamiya 6 medium-format rangefinder
Lens: Mamiya 75mm
Fil­ter: #8 yel­low
Film: Fuji Acros 100
Devel­oper: Rod­i­nal 1+100
Devel­op­ment: Small tank for 18 min­utes at 20 degrees Cel­sius. Agi­ta­tion was for the last 15 sec­onds for the first three min­utes, then once every three min­utes.
Date: April, 2010
Loca­tion: 44.80470,-65.16820
Copy­right: 2010 Chris Jones. All rights reserved.

Tags: blackandwhite · historicsite · mamiya6 · mediumformat · novascotia · rural
Posted in: Photographs
Permanent link: http://betterleftunsaid.ca/baby-roxbury-cemetery/
Short link: http://llvn.ca/3g

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