Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cremation or in the Dirt for You?

Is Soylent Green an option?

Cremation and sprinkle next to Granite creek up in the Pacific Northwest Cascades. That is where my mom and dad are .

Mine are in Heaven.

I have 12 family members in a little cemetery in PA. There’s one more spot left.

I think I want one of those little benches that has “Sit with me a while” on it”. That, or a tombstone that says, “I told you I was sick!”

How will I know or care?

About 100 years ago, my great grandfather sold 2 acres of his homestead to the county for a cemetery. It's county cemetery but maybe half of the residents are relatives. Years ago, my mother bought a block of 5 plots for $75 each. If urns are buried, they will allow 4 urns/plot. We can squeeze a bunch of family members in there. My father, brother, and wife are all there and there's plenty of room left for the rest of my generation.

A humorous side note: When my dad died, my 1st wife had terminal cancer. We were at the cemetery burying Dad and she looked at the plot assigned to us, knowing that within months she'd be there. She said "You're young enough that you'll probably get remarried. There's plenty of room for 3 of us in there."

The Cremation of Sam McGee
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

Cremated and buried at sea by the USN. The only logical resting place for a Navy Chief.

Creamation.No one around except my wife to care.I asked my wife to take my ashes to the mountains. She said she would most likely throw them in the garden and I sure wouldn't know the difference nor care

Leave me for the vultures for all I care. I'll be dead. My ashes going to fish and hunt in the mountains or something? Somebody wants to plant me like a tomato, fine. Use me for a bonfire? Ok. Put me out in the back pasture and shoot coyotes and ravens off me? Sure. Of all the decisions I have to make, this one is the least important.

I have requested my retched corpse be bound in a canvas sack and then kicked out of a Cessna at 12K ft. AGL over the Bob.
My wife however keeps mumbling something about laws or some nonsense whenever I bring it up so questionable whether my last wishes will be granted.


....would be something though, especially during hunting season while some wayward elk hunter try's to put the sneak on a nice 6 pt. bull. near the impact zone.

Dirt, no cemetery needed.

Nearest trash can if I die on pavement. Leave me in the woods if I die there. Who cares. If my wife and/or son want to waste money on something different, I won't be in any position to argue, so, again, I don't care.

So have "they" been formally instructed to do so?

My plan is to be cremated. When we’re both gone my boys can dump my wife and I into the same container and then spread us out in a few favorite spots.

I wish to be torn apart by wild dogs while my friends sit around and drink beer.

Cremation, Then the boy is going to load up some 12 ga with my ashes and take me out for one last round of trap.

Really enjoyed the poem. Thanks Doc.
7mm

You can make a profit on this dying business by selling your corpse to the local medical college.

Who cares, guaranteed you will not remember it