Halifax starting plan for Memorial Library site that will honour forgotten burial ground
City says returning library site to a park is best option
More than a decade after the old Halifax library closed, the city has begun to explore options for the site's future that could include demolition of the municipal heritage building.
The municipality recently passed $100,000 in this year's budget to hire a consultant to make a plan for the Memorial Library property. A Halifax spokesperson said that work will include public input and other research.
Municipal staff have said removing the building, which would see the site become a park with "historical interpretation," is the best option for an area with a burial ground that has never been properly acknowledged.
"It is just one of those classic cases, this [burial] site that illustrates how a whole part of our history can just be jettisoned and forgotten," said Jonathan Fowler, anthropology professor at Saint Mary's University.
"There are many parts like that in this city, in this province, in this country. And I welcome the opportunity to engage in the work of remembering."
The Spring Garden Road library opened in 1951 as a living cenotaph in honour of those who died in the First World War and the Second World War.
It became a fixture of public life over the decades, with generations of Haligonians finding favourite books in the shelves, or enjoying fries from Bud the Spud food truck on the grassy area near the street.
Although there was no mention of it in newspapers when it opened, or in council minutes about the location, the library was built on top of the Poor House Burying Ground.
It's estimated 4,500 people from the neighbouring Poor House (located where the Doyle building is now) were buried there between the 1760s and mid-1800s.
Poor House residents would have been those on the margins of society at the time, including orphans, people with disabilities, those who were homeless, or unwed mothers.
People from all backgrounds were buried there, including Mi'kmaq, Black Nova Scotians, and victims of epidemics like smallpox. Records also show people new to Halifax, from around the province or the world, were buried at the site.
"All of their lives have simply been forgotten. And it just doesn't seem right, does it?" said Fowler.
Local historian William Breckenridge has formed Friends of the Halifax Memorial Library, and is working with the Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society to urge the city to repurpose the building.
"It leaves me very concerned, because demolition is not an option that I think will respect the burials that are underneath, and also all the other history that goes along with it," Breckenridge said.
Breckenridge and Emma Lang, executive director of the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia, said the library is architecturally important and should be turned into a museum or community space to tell the entire story of the site.
"The fact that they chose to build a memorial to people who died in the wars on a cemetery, without acknowledging the people who are under here, is a really important story in itself," Lang said.
"To tear it down seems to be … making it worse when you have the ability to at least talk about why this building was there, and what does that say about Halifax at the time — good and bad."
After the Poor House on Spring Garden closed in the 1860s, the burial site was grassed over and trees were planted for it to become Grafton Park. The green space housed a fire station before the library was built.
Although there are no reports that human remains were found during the library's construction, Fowler said it's "highly unlikely, bordering on impossible" that graves weren't disturbed.
An archeological report on the 2016-17 relocation of graves from the adjacent St. David's Presbyterian Church land shows the remains of 244 people were recovered and moved to the church crypt. Three mass graves were found, including one of "likely former residents of the Poor House Cemetery on the neighbouring property."
A Halifax staff report from July 2024 said Mi'kmaw ancestral remains were discovered during that excavation work ahead of the creation of the Grafton Park apartment building.
Given the cultural sensitivity of the Poor House burial site, and strict protocol around land with Mi'kmaw remains, the report recommends against ground-disturbing activities on the property.
Municipal staff said it would take $15 million to $20 million to renovate the library with new water and sewer lines, replace the roof, elevator, and rebuild the interior. These updates, especially new pipes, would require digging.
Pam Glode-Desrochers, executive director of the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Society, said it will be up to elders and other experts to weigh in on what the protocols should be around any changes to the site.
While digging should not be a "first resort," Glode-Desrochers said it should be up to the wider Mi'kmaw community, and people of all backgrounds in Halifax, to decide together the best option.
"It's almost a little emotional because these are our ancestors. These were somebody's auntie and uncles and mothers and brothers, and like they belonged to community," said Glode-Desrochers.
"But it's also exciting on the possibilities of what can be done, and how do we do that together."
Although the burial ground is a piece of lost local history for many Halifax residents today, Glode-Desrochers said it's "always been known" by many in the Mi'kmaw community.
"There'll be some tough conversations, but I also think it's part of the healing journey and what that looks like," said Glode-Desrochers.
If the city wanted to explore repurposing the building, legal changes would need to be made because of a covenant on the land.
The staff report said the province granted the land to Halifax in 1882 "for the use and enjoyment of the citizens of Halifax, as a public square or gardens forever and for no other purposes whatsoever." In 1949, the province amended the covenant to allow a public library only.
Various groups have considered taking the building over the years, staff said, but determined it would be "uneconomical and thus inviable." Halifax eventually asked the province to take the site back, but it officially declined to do so in 2023.
The consultant's final report is expected to go before regional council summer 2026.
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