Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery in Montreal to reopen in early September after strike

Groundskeepers have returned to work at Montreal's Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery, and the non-profit that runs the cemetery says it hopes to reopen the site by early September, but it will take months to clear a backlog of burials.

The cemetery, the largest in Canada, has been closed since January when its workers went on strike. 

During that time, the grounds became overgrown and a spring ice storm littered branches among the tombstones and left others hanging precariously over the graves. 

But the strike ended last week — at least for the operations staff who maintain the grounds. They reached an agreement with the non-profit that runs the site, La Fabrique. The cemetery's office staff are still on strike. 

The cleanup has now begun, according to La Fabrique, who issued a statement on Wednesday morning.

"A few months will be necessary before returning to the normality and the peaceful atmosphere of the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery," said Michel St-Amour, the volunteer administrator of La Fabrique. "But we will invest all our energies into reaching that objective as quickly as possible."

La Fabrique said it would begin contacting bereaved families to resume ground burials in the cemetery, which were paused during the strike, leaving hundreds of bodies waiting in storage ahead of formal burial. 

The burials are expected to resume in the coming weeks. During that time, only people attending those ceremonies will be granted access to the site.

La Fabrique says the plan is to have the cemetery fully reopened in early September. The group says it wants to complete the hundreds of delayed burials by the end of the year.

The cemetery's closure has frustrated grieving families, some of whom were waiting to bury loved ones or who wanted to visit a family member's grave.