Honoring the Circle of Life

Most of us don’t like to think about death, much less our own death and what will become of us when it happens. Russell Hargrave didn’t either. But when his younger brother Robert died in 2009, that changed. Robert was cremated and after the funeral service, his ashes were distributed among several relatives.

“I felt that one of the biggest shortcomings of how we dealt with his passing was that there was no place to memorialize him, no place where I might go to think about him, and find another friend of his doing the same,” Hargrave said. “It left a yearning for solace that continues to this day.” Later, Hargrave moved his mother to the Gorge so she could be close to him and his family as she aged. He and his wife Stephanie began to think about what his mother’s end-of-life-plan would be. Then, they took the next logical leap.

“I turned to my wife and, for the first time in my life, we looked at each other and asked, what are we going to do?” he said. “We looked out around this place, the home we built and the land we love.” Hargrave bought his initial 10-acre property in Mosier in 1990 and has lived there ever since, buying adjacent properties over the years when they became available. He and Stephanie were married on the land in 2000, and they have raised their 15-year-old twins there.

While the answer to their question seemed clear, it brought up many more questions. Could they be buried on their land? How is it done? What will become of the property in a hundred years — who will own it?

“I personally don’t want to be preserved,” Hargrave said, “I want to give back to the earth at the end of my life, instead of taking from it.” His research led him to natural or “green” burial, a practice that has grown in recent years as people seek a more environmentally-friendly hereafter — one connected with nature and its lifecycles and eschewing the accoutrements of traditional burial like chemical-heavy embalming, elaborate caskets and concrete vaults. Traditional burial is also increasingly a land-use issue, given that cemetery arrivals far outpace departures.

“We came around to green burial because it fits,” Hargrave said. Figuring he wouldn’t be the only one interested in a final resting place amid nature in the beautiful hills outside Mosier, the quest to create a natural cemetery began. That was more than two years ago. Since then, Hargrave has been steadily working on his plan, with licensing underway that will have Great River, as it’s named, being one of the only exclusively green cemeteries in Oregon.

It has three occupied burial sites so far — Hargrave’s mother and another brother, Randy, who died in May, as well as a Gorge resident who died in February 2020.

Like most quests borne of the heart, Hargrave’s has evolved over time. Regulations, opportunity and Mother Nature have all played a part. Hargrave’s initial vision had the natural cemetery sited on 80 acres of his 195-acre property. He got the necessary permitting and in April of 2019 when his mother died, she was buried on a ridge above Dry Creek Canyon, becoming Great River’s first cemetery occupant.

Then, an opportunity came along to purchase a property that abutted his which seemed better suited for Great River. Hargrave had long eyed that property, which along with expansive views included a defunct RV park dating to the 1970s. There were several old campground buildings that Hargrave envisioned being repurposed for Great River, including a large hall for indoor life celebrations. Everything finally aligned and Hargrave closed on the 155-acre parcel at the end of July 2020.

Less than two weeks later, the Mosier Creek Fire erupted and burned across the property, churning through stands of pine and oak. “We lost 100 acres of trees,” Hargrave said. Several of the buildings were also destroyed, including the large hall.

As someone who has immersed himself in lifecycles of late, Hargrave was philosophical about it. “The fire erased a lot of habitat,” he said, “but it opened up a lot of habitat.” As Hargrave and a crew worked to clear out burned trees and vegetation — a process that continued this last summer — he also redrew the cemetery site to include acreage on the new land.

An application is in the works for county approval of the new site, which includes six and a half acres of dedicated cemetery area spanning both the original and the new property. Plans are to eventually expand the cemetery into other parts of the property with different natural features. As of now, it spans sloped meadows and lightly forested areas. “The vision is to extend the cemetery into other types of places with different options” for burial plots, Hargrave said.

Natural burial tends to be participatory, with loved ones often digging the gravesite, building a biodegradable casket (natural burial also allows for interment in cloth shrouds) and transporting the deceased to the site. Great River invites as much or as little participation as is wanted, and will provide all the associated services if requested.

Trails provide access through the cemetery, and visitors will be invited to explore the land. The goal, he said, is for it to be a place where people can come and connect not only with a deceased loved one, but also with nature. “That’s what we hope we can do with this land, and the solace it can provide,” Hargrave said.

To that end, Hargrave has expanded the vision of Great River to include ecology and place-based education. “We envision something where kids could learn about the cycle of life in animals,” he said, perhaps studying them on the land and then walking through the cemetery “so the idea of death is more ‘normal.’ Or at least not scary.” Over the summer, Let’s Get Out, a Hood River-based outdoor adventure and education company, helped plant trees and make signs at the site.

Hargrave also has been working with architects to design a new building to replace the large hall that burned down. The existing foundation will be the base for a multi-use building with space for indoor memorials and life celebrations as well as a “discovery center,” a room where people can learn about green burial practices and about the Great River site — including the ecology of the area and its historical use by Native Americans. Family and adolescent grief programs could also be held there.

Work continues apace this fall at Great River, where Hargrave is drawing on his career as an engineer, tech executive and entrepreneur to create a place that is part green cemetery, part life celebration and ceremony venue, and part ecology and grief education center — all of it enveloped in nature.

“We’ve been calling this the full circle of life cemetery,” Hargrave said. “We want it to be as interesting for the living as it is peaceful for the deceased.” 

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