Whitehorse cemetery mystery laid to rest, partly

An amateur historian in Whitehorse has settledone gravesite mystery, while another lives on.

Murray Lundbergstarted sleuthing earlier this monthafterrenovation work at the Pioneer Cemetery uncovered a pair of large, unmarked graves.

Lundberg had a hunch it might be the final resting place of Otto and Kate Partridge the prominent couple who built Ben-My-Chree, an idyllic tourist retreat on TagishLake, a century ago but he had no proof.

So he started digging, so to speak.

He got hold of some City of Whitehorse records and discoveredhis hunch waswrong. The gravesite was nobody's final resting place.

"That's the nature of research you work on an assumption, sometimes it pans outand sometimes it doesn't," Lundberg said.

"It never occurred to me that the graves might be empty."

The city records told him the graves once belonged to T.C. Richards a legendaryWhitehorse entrepreneur and gambler and his wife Bernadine. T.C. died in 1961 and Bernadine in 1956.

But Lundbergsays the Richardswere ultimatelylaid to rest at Whitehorse'sGrey Mountain Cemetery, in 1967.

"That may very well explain why the plots in the Pioneer Cemetery were totally covered over with dirt so you couldn't recognize them because they were empty," he said.

The empty grave had concrete mounts where the Richards's headstones once stood, and Lundbergtook some measurements. They matched the Richards's headstonesat Grey Mountain.

But where are the Partridges?

Lundberg is now confident he's solved one mystery, but another remains where are the Partridges buried?

They had to come to mind for Lundberg when the Pioneer Cemetery graves were first uncovered, because the coupleseemed prominentenough to deserve a large plot.

There was also no known gravesite for the Partridges.

Looking through City of Whitehorse records, Lundbergactually found another plotatPioneer Cemetery identified as belonging tothe Partridges but it's empty too.

"They've got the Partridges marked into a single plot, and the ground-penetrating radar survey over the winter found nothing there," he said. "It's still a mystery."

Lundbergis not giving up now. He's got a long-standing fascination with the Partridges, and he's determined to find their resting place. He's just not sure where to go at this point.

"I've pretty well tracked down all the things I've been able to think of so far," he said.

"But there's an answer out there somewhere."