At the Heart of the Island
The Denman Island Natural Burial Cemetery is located in the center of the Island, at 6400 Denman Road. Denman is a small island—just under 54 square kilometers (a little over 13,000 acres)—located in British Columbia, Canada. It lies in the Strait of Georgia, a 10-minute ferry ride from Buckley Bay, which is on the east coast of Vancouver Island about 85 km north of Nanaimo. The Cemetery is diagonally across the road from the first cemetery on Denman Island, which was established in 1904 and had sold all burial rights by the 1970s.
The Cemetery property is 1.08 hectares (2.7 acres) and is irregularly shaped. The south and east sides are bordered by Denman Road and North Central Road, respectively, and the other sides by Central Park, a 59-hectare recreation/conservation property owned since 2006 by the Denman Conservancy Association. The odd shape of the property is dictated by a marsh to the west and the Central Park road access to the northeast. However, because no fences separate the Cemetery land from Central Park, this shape makes the Cemetery seem larger than it is.
Ample space is available for parking on the sides of Denman and North Central roads. The public may visit at any time. Visitors are asked to respect the sanctity of the land and the goal of maintaining a natural setting.