Anchorage’s public cemetery is likely to run out of room for low-cost burials next summer

The public section of the only cemetery in Anchorage that offers free burial plots is nearly full.

As a result, more families are opting for stacked casket burials — putting coffins one on top of the other — and officials hoping for extra space donated by a religious organization are squeezing a few more graves into poorly mapped sections of the property’s historical section in the meantime.

The few remaining spots will likely be filled by next summer.

Established in 1915, the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery is an important part of Alaska history: Bush pilots, prospectors and early business owners are buried there alongside notable politicians like Gov. Wally Hickel and artists including Sydney Laurence.

The rows of headstones, including two whale jawbones marking one plot, sit in a fenced-off space roughly nine square city blocks at the edge of downtown between East Sixth and Ninth avenues.

[From Wally Hickel to Miss Wiggles, the storied history of Anchorage’s first cemetery]

It’s estimated that the cemetery holds more than 15,000 graves. Nearly 2,000 spaces in the cemetery remain empty. But those are set aside for public reservations or private tracts saved for families or members of specific groups and organizations such the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, The American Legion and Pioneers of Alaska.

Cemetery director Rob Jones said the public section of the cemetery filled up significantly faster than predicted.

With businesses and houses on all sides, there isn’t room to expand. There are no active plans to build a new municipal memorial park. Voters rejected a bond this year to establish cemeteries in Eagle River and Girdwood.

As the public section of the cemetery fills, those seeking burials may have to shift to the Angelus Memorial Park in South Anchorage. The biggest difference between the two is cost — plots at the downtown cemetery are free because it sits on public land, while burial spots at the private, nonprofit cemetery can cost thousands.

The median cost of a funeral with a burial last year in America was $8,300, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

Squeezing in the last few spaces

Along with the private plots and other reserved areas, the cemetery also still has ample room for cremated remains to be buried or stored in the Columbarium Wall.

But the park reached capacity for public burials in June.

As the public plots filled, crews began using specialized equipment to review that older section of the cemetery and found areas with enough room for additional plots. The older tracts were dug without as much precision as is possible today and record-keeping has vastly improved, Jones said.

“We’re pretty sure we know where people are, but the lines in the old part of the cemetery weren’t done by engineers, so they drift east and west, they get narrow and wide for no apparent reason and things don’t really line up the way we would really like them to,” he said. “So when we get into that old part of the cemetery, it’s kind of a mystery.”

Crews identified 25 plots over the summer for families who wanted their loved ones buried in the cemetery but didn’t care where, Jones said. Out of those 25 spots, 23 were usable. Another 20 or so potential graves were identified in the historical tract that can be dug next spring and summer.

He’s hopeful a donation from the Catholic Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau will open up an additional 46 casket plots for next year.

Even so, he estimated any space for public burials will be completely full by June.

A more costly option

At Angelus Memorial Park, a private cemetery in South Anchorage, plot prices start at $1,700, said Ben Spink, who manages the cemetery. Angelus offers some discounts for burials eligible for financial assistance, but they are still more expensive than those at the city cemetery, he said.

Families who need financial assistance can apply through the state Department of Health and receive funds to cover the cost of a plot and any additional burial requirements at the least expensive local cemetery. The department’s costs may increase as plots fill in the public section of the cemetery, but no policy changes should be needed, said Alex Huseman, a spokeswoman for the department.

The Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau has also offered 46 of the spots in their tract for public use, Jones said. As long as the municipality approves, that will open enough spots that burials could continue into June, he said.

With so few remaining spots, Jones said, the cemetery likely won’t take reservations for the remaining plots, but families could elect to fit two caskets in one spot. The cemetery digs graves deeper and can bury one person and then later bury a second family member on top of the first casket, he said.

It’s easier to prepare for such burials in advance, but it’s possible to disinter a casket and dig deeper to add an additional casket to the grave, Jones said.

The stacked burial option is one that more families have been choosing as plots filled, he said.

‘It’s expensive already’

This year, Anchorage voters shot down a $4.1 million bond that would have funded public cemeteries in Eagle River and Girdwood. Those cemeteries could have served as a place for new state-assisted burials to take place, said Tommy O’Malley, who has spent decades advocating for a Girdwood graveyard.

Additional public cemeteries in the Anchorage area would save the state money but also ensure burials are affordable for the general public, O’Malley said.

“Some people can’t afford $6,000 or $8,000 to bury their loved one,” he said. “It’s expensive already — the free plots kind of made it egalitarian.”

O’Malley said he was disappointed that the bond failed, but he plans to continue pushing for a cemetery in Girdwood and hopes even a basic one could open in the near future with limited funding.

Cemeteries are an integral part of communities and their history, he said.

“Everybody expresses their spirituality and their mortality differently, but they all express it,” O’Malley said. “And it’s important, it’s a remembrance and it’s our past.”