A new, low-cost alternative to the traditional end-of-life options of a burial plot or columbarium niche became available to the public on Thursday, July 21 as the Town of Drumheller officially opened the scatter gardens at the Drumheller Municipal Cemetery.
Scatter gardens offer a designated space for cremated remains, also known as cremains, to be scattered while also offering a place for families and loved ones to gather and reminisce.
“As a previous council we were looking at ways to kind of save, enhance, and extend our valley, and the cemetery came up; one of the ideas was a scatter garden,” Mayor Heather Colberg shares with the Mail.
Mayor Colberg adds some research was done with funeral homes, including Courtney-Winters Funeral Home locally along with other funeral homes within the surrounding communities regarding the idea of a scatter garden.
“Our valley really has a limited amount of space, and this allows people to have another option. It’s really something I think is going to catch on over time,” she says.
A pergola, built by Shane Urrutia with Drumheller Public Works, is the centerpiece of the gardens, flanked by white sand and daylilies; a memorial wall was also erected on July 22, offering space for a memorial plaque to be placed.
“The way they’ve done this is beautiful, it’s inviting,” Mayor Colberg says. She adds it is expected benches will be installed to further give families an area to gather. “Although we’re gone, we still want to be together.”
The gardens are located near the columbariums in the south eastern edge of the cemetery, and there is space to allow possible future expansion of the scatter gardens.
A permit is required to scatter cremains at the garden, and families will have the option to purchase a permit with or without a plaque for the memorial wall.
Visit https://www.drumheller.ca/live/town-services/cemetery for more information about the scatter gardens or other services available at the cemetery.

Last week some interesting-looking potable towers installed throughout the valley were raising some questions from residents. It turns out these are simply for traffic counts.
Wayne Wood of Alberta Transportation explains these cameras are placed at intersections to collect traffic counts of different types of vehicles.
“We typically undertake turning movement counts in the summer, between May and September. This year, we are undertaking a number of turning movement counts along Highway 9 and Highway 838 in Drumheller,” he said in an email.
He explains that as part of Alberta Transportation's Traffic Monitoring Program, it monitors approximately 2,700 intersections across the province, with approximately 540 monitoring turning movement counts.
The count data is used to estimate traffic volumes, including the number of trucks on highways. This data is used for future highway planning and design.