Gleaming headstones stick out of the ground, some at an angle as S’eiltin Jamiann Hasselquist walked through a graveyard on a hill in Douglas.
Some have ornate designs with a Bible, a bear, or the pearly gates, while others are simple: just a name, and years of a life lived. Many of those lives were short — people who died in their 20s and 30s. The years on the markers read from the late 1800s to the 1930s.
Hasselquist has been cleaning up the cemeteries on Douglas for five years now. She said she and the volunteers who have helped along the way have made some major progress.
“We have our own little community of cemetery restorationers, basically good cemeterians,” she said.
According to a 30-year-old city survey, there are about 500 gravesites in 10 small cemeteries on either side of Douglas Highway near Lawson Creek. Some belong to fraternal organizations that maintain them. Others, the Catholic church.
There is one known as the “city” cemetery — believed to be maintained by the City of Douglas until it was unified with the City and Borough of Juneau in 1970. Since, there has been a lot of confusion about the ownership of that patch of land.
When Hasselquist and other volunteers like Mike and Jess Kinville started working in 2021, many of the graves were buried in six-foot-tall salmonberry bushes. It took years just to cut all of those down.
These days, the group has been uncovering, cleaning off and righting headstones. In the cemetery where Alaska Native people were buried, Hasselquist pointed to some newly bright and upright headstones.
“John Smith over there was up against that tree,” she said. “He’d been laying over for quite a while, and then I was able to stand him behind the tree, but we pulled him forward and reset his headstone. Chief Johnson got a really good makeover. We reset him, put a foundation down.”
This group of volunteers started in 2021, and built off work elders, like Bob Sam, Ed Kunz, Richard Dauenhauer and Marie Olsen, started in the 1990s.
After five years, Hasselquist believes she’s seen the most volunteers this summer. On the last volunteer day of the season, 16 people showed up to work in the cemeteries.
The Gastineau Channel Historical Society started sponsoring the restoration work this summer. Now, the nonprofit collects donations which the cemetery volunteers can use to buy gravel and equipment.
One day this summer, Hasselquist said the group took pitchforks and pushed them into the earth around indentations that were likely graves to try to find gravestones, which she said could have sunk six inches or more into the ground.
Volunteer Elizabeth Kell found one for a man born in 1898, who lived to be 30 years old.
“She located Gene Jake, who was completely buried, sunken into the ground even after she located him,” Hasselquist said.
One other marker was recovered and raised that day. Hasselquist said there are many, many more buried. But there are also a lot of markers on the surface that are covered in moss and lichen, tilting or fallen over.
“After that, I said, ‘You know what? We need to focus on the ones we can see. Let’s focus on lifting those, and then after that, then we can start pitchforking again,’” she said.
Five years later, the cemeteries look very different. Instead of a thick bramble of bushes, dozens of gravestones are upright and look almost new.
“Now I can show up, and it feels like they’re resting in a place that has brought some dignity and respect to where they’re resting,” she said.”
Hasselquist said she’s excited to see how the cemeteries will feel after another five years of work.
The city is in the process of formalizing who provides landscaping and maintenance services at some of the Douglas cemeteries. It issued a request for proposals this summer. Hasselquist put in an application on behalf of her team of volunteers. The director for Parks and Recreation said arrangements are still being finalized.
The volunteer group is hosting a community picnic at the Lawson Creek cemeteries in Douglas on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to celebrate the restoration work and talk about what’s coming next year.
