Description of Historic Place

The Macdonald Pioneer Cemetery is a small rural cemetery containing about 30 graves bordered on three sides by mature spruce trees and surrounded by cultivated farmland just north of Macdonald. The municipal designation applies to the 4,000-square-metre parcel of land.

Heritage Value

The Macdonald Pioneer Cemetery, a tidy, straightforward burial ground established in the late 1880s on a donated site and still in use, is the only cemetery in the small community of Macdonald and a rare link to the area's settlers. Since the 1990s the site has been a focus for local heritage conservation, with considerable effort put into restoring the grounds and grave markers and maintaining the cemetery as an attractive place of rest and reflection. This preservation activity is of dual community significance, providing continuity with the past, as well as assuring contemporary residents they can be interred in the place they call home.

Source: Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie By-law No. 2619, February 12, 1991

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the site character of the Macdonald Pioneer Cemetery include:
- the relatively remote, rural agricultural location north of Macdonald, accessed from a municipal road
- the generally flat, open topography and the orderly arrangement of gravesites within
- the secluded, peaceful nature of the site

Key elements that define the cemetery's heritage character and memorial function include:
- the burials, including their orientations
- the variety of headstones and engravings
- the connection to the Gillespie family, early area settlers who donated the land
- the public access and continuing use