This Geocache site is brought to you by the Turtle Mountain Souris Plains Heritage Association. Lat: N 49°29.298’ Long: W 101°21.280’
Note that the accompanying map may not be completely accurate. For exact directions to this location, search Google Maps using the coordinates given, or visit geocaching.com. For more historical information visit our website at vantagepoints.ca.
A fenced enclosure in a farmer’s field, just barely visible from the nearest road, contains a cemetery. There is a very rough trail, sometimes drivable in summer, if you have a truck or SUV, or you can walk in from the gravel road.
The first settlers to arrive in the community that was to become the Diana district were Icelandic. They had originally come to the New Iceland settlement at Gimli beginning in 1876. Some had moved on to the Grund area between Baldur and Glenboro in the early 1880’s, and when homesteads were becoming harder to find, a few moved west to the area between Sinclair and Tilston.
The largest group settled in the Diana district in what was then Albert Municipality. Perhaps because of distance, or perhaps because Icelandic settlers had their own distinctive burial traditions, they established their own cemetery rather than use nearby ones.
The cemetery contains seven graves, all unmarked but one. A small, weathered white granite headstone bears the word « Baby » and below it is the name Gestur, infant son of J. F. and F. Davidson, who died on May 8, 1919, at the age of seven days. Three unmarked stone slabs can be seen in the east half of the cemetery. A monument in the cemetery lists the names of the seven people buried there.
Sources: Manitoba Historical Society; Albert R.M.: Reflections of Time: A History of the R. M. of Albert; Tilston: The Municipality, 1984; Trails Along the Pipestone, R.M. of Pipestone History Project, 1981; Photo credits: cemetery photos from summer of 2013 by Gloria and Barry Hill.
