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January/February 2004 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: The singing forest In-depth: Boreal birds The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations Explorer À la carte Mosaic

Photo: Susan Fisher

Just beyond the eastern boundary of Alberta’s Jasper National Park, weathered graves (above) lie on an alpine slope 1,900 metres above sea level. This is the highest cemetery in Canada and, some say, in the Commonwealth. The families buried here were once residents of the long-gone coal-mining town of Mountain Park, whose population was 1,000 at its peak.

From 1910 to 1950, when coal was in demand for heating homes and fuelling locomotives, Mountain Park boomed, along with nine other isolated villages dotting the Canadian National Railways’ “Coal Branch Line.” When natural gas and diesel started to replace coal-fired power, the mines eventually closed, one by one.

Mountain Park was the first to succumb, in 1950. Within a few years, all that remained of the community were the silent graves with their glorious view of the mountains. For more than four decades, the remote cemetery was forgotten. Then, in 1997, a small group of aging former residents decided to make the arduous trek up the mountain a few times each summer to repair rotting grave markers and clear encroaching buckbrush. For Mountain Park expatriates like Mary Salzsauler, who was 13 when she had to leave her hometown, “Returning to my roots is important.” She and others plan to have their ashes buried there one day — home at last.

For the rest of this story, visit your local newsstand or go to our store to buy this issue.

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