On A Jewish Tour Of Northern Ontario, Small Spaces Convey Decades Of History
TORONTO (JTA) – I was definitely lost, of that I was sure. I had turned off the main highway — if you could call a two-lane road a highway — and onto a dirt road, and after 10 minutes of driving, having seen nothing but lumber workers and a lone fox, there was no way that I was going to find what I was looking for.
But I continued driving down the dirt road until I came to a small white sign that read “Hebrew cemetery” and knew I must be close, after all. But I still couldn’t find it anywhere. So I stopped the car on the side of the road and approached a small barn, where I asked a lone farmer if he knew where the Jewish cemetery was.
“Right across the street,” he answered.
I looked around, seeing nothing but forest and fields.
“Where, exactly?” I asked.
“There,” he said, pointing directly across the street.
Perplexed, I crossed the road, through a small forest, and walked for hundreds of feet. I came to a small building, not much larger than a shed, with a modest sign that read “Northern Chevra Kadisha-Krugerdorf,” and a small clearing with about 60 graves, some of which dated back more than 110 years. The first grave and a number of others are the markers for the original Jewish inhabitants of the area, who died when their canoe overturned on the cold river rapids. They were buried almost two weeks later in an empty field donated by Simon Hanarousky, a Jewish farmer nearby.
Knowing that this cemetery sees virtually no visitors, it seemed appropriate to offer the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead and leave some stones — a traditional Jewish practice upon visiting a graveyard — before heading on my way.
The last burial in this cemetery hasn’t been for a year. Before long it will likely see its final Jewish burial, as very few Jews remain in the area.
Here I was in the rugged bar