History of N.B.'s Ha Ha Cemetery goes way beyond a funny name
CBC
In New Brunswick's Albert County, along Route 915, you will find a graveyard with a name that doesn't quite seem fitting for a place where the dead are laid to rest.
Between Riverside-Albert and Cape Enrage, in a community called New Horton, is the Ha Ha Cemetery.
Moncton historian and educator James Upham calls the site "a really cool spot."
"It's so cool when you have these places that catch your eye and they sort of stand out and people notice them," he said. "What is it and where does it come from?"
Upham said many have taken note of the eastern Quebec community near the New Brunswick border called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, but this cemetery is called Ha Ha because it is next to yet another place with the same unusual name.
"This is called the Ha Ha Cemetery because it's next to the Ha Ha River or the Ha Ha Creek, and that creek runs through this marsh," Upham said from the hillside graveyard.
A sign at the cemetery confirms that the farming and lumbering community sits on the edge of Ha Ha Bay which drains into Ha Ha Creek.
It goes on to explain that legend has it that Indigenous people were inspired to call the area Ha Ha "from the call of the loons," and that on calm, summer days you can hear the loons calling.
According to Tom Johnson's interactive map of New Brunswick Indigenous place names, there are two sites close to the Ha Ha Cemetery that were used as Indigenous camping grounds.
Johnson works with the non-profit Mi'gmawe'l Tplu'taqn Inc., representing nine New Brunswick Mi'kmaw communities.
The first site was located below what is now known as Mary's Point, and its Indigenous name was "See-bel-quitk," according to his map.
The second is labelled as the "Germantown Lake campsite" and according to Johnson's map, on the north side of the lake is "a knoll with a spring and a good beach, known to have been an old Indian camping ground of some importance."
Johnson says that campsite has been used by Indigenous people "within the memory of persons still living."
According to a sign at The Ha Ha Baptist Cemetery, this is one of three pioneer graveyards in the area.
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