Graveyard at 427/401?

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Returning from a day trip to Toronto (more on that later), we were driving up Highway 427 and taking the ramp onto Highway 401 when I pointed and said, "bury all your horses."

Erin and her sister Wendy have, since childhood, played this game every time they travel together in the car. For every horse you see, you're supposed to point and say "zip!" Each "zip!" gives you a point. If you see a graveyard, you point, say "bury all your horses!" and everybody else's point total is reduced to zero.

I'd noticed the Highway 427/401 graveyard before, so I was looking for it in order to even the scores. Everybody else had points; I didn't. I love graveyards: they are great equalizers.

The others had a hard time believing that the graveyard was there, and I can understand why. The graveyard appears on your left in the grassy median beside Highway 427 as the ramp starts to break off and head for Highway 401. The graveyard sits on wasteland, surrounded by onramps. I don't think there's any public access to it anywhere (except, possibly, from Eglinton Avenue, via a path that I simply cannot see). Sometimes, some of the gravestones have wreaths, but I've never seen any other sign of visitors.

I'm willing to swear on a Bible that this graveyard exists, even if I can't identify it on any map (I haven't checked the official cartographical maps of the area, yet). I will point it out to my family the next time we pass it, but do any of you readers know what I'm talking about? Have you seen this graveyard while travelling north on Highway 427, turning onto Highway 401? Do you know its history? Was it an old graveyard that got cut off by the highway construction? Or is it the place where they buried the workers killed in the building of this humungous interchange?


Update (June 15, 2003): Thanks to my father, I've learned more about the lonely cemetary in the interchange of Highways 427 and 401. Click here for more information about Richview Memorial Cemetary.

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