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CHAPTER TWO Nedra's Casket
Last year seven people were buried out at the Jones Point Cemetery, near the Chilkat River on the edge of town, behind the softball park and the Eagles Nest Trailer Court. That's not enough deaths to support a funeral parlor, and Haines isn't close enough to anywhere with one to move bodies back and forth affordably. Families have to charter a small plane to Juneau if they want cremation or embalming services. There are lots of stories about both bodies and ashes getting lost on flights back from Juneau or even Anchorage, where the state sometimes requires them to be shipped for autopsies.
This winter one urn filled with the ashes of an old-timer who died at the Pioneer Home in Juneau didn't make it back to Haines for the funeral, which was held anyway with a cloth-covered cardboard box standing in for the ashes. Out-of-town family members couldn't wait for the weather to clear. They had to get back to homes and jobs in the Lower Forty-eight.
It's much simpler to stay in Haines if you're dead than to go anywhere else. Haines can be a hard place to live, but it's a good place to die, thanks to a handful of dedicated volunteers, service clubs, and churches.
One woman had the sad experience of burying her father in Haines, then two months later going through the whole thing all over again with her husband's dad in Pennsylvania. "In the Lower Forty-eight for thousands of dollars strangers will take over and do everything for you, in the mistaken assumption that they are helping," Randa said. "It was so much easier for me to work through the grieving process when I had an active role in the preparations for burial."
That's where Annie Boyce and Paul Swift come in. The husband-and-wife team prepares the dead for viewing and burial. They do this for free, for anyone who asks. Family and friends stop by the makeshift morgue–a garage with a walk-in cooler at City Hall, next door to the jail–to help them, or to just take a last look at a parent, child, or friend.
Paul has bathed and dressed over one hundred bodies in the fifteen years since he inherited the job from a Presbyterian pastor. Annie started helping a few years ago. "It's good to have a woman, too," Paul says. "The main thing is to keep it dignified and respectful." He doesn't find the work creepy or morbid at all. "I think it's my Christian background," he says. "I feel the soul's departed..."
"Even," says Annie, quietly finishing his thought, "with people we've been close to, it's good to be able to help. Yes, it can be difficult and emotionally exhausting. Nevertheless, I believe what we do is a powerful witness."
"Just be sure you have three points of contact," Paul yells. We are a long way from the morgue, on the steep, snow-covered slope of Mount Ripinsky. "That's two poles and one snowshoe, or two snowshoes and one pole," he adds, looking down at me over Annie's head. It is a brilliant Thursday morning in February. The snow is white, the sky is blue, and when Annie called to see if I could get away for a day outdoors I didn't hesitate, even though I'd never gone up this section of the mountain on snowshoes before.
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