1. Our Garage Facilities:                             

          On the surface, you may consider it strange that we are including our garage facilities in our web-site.  However, our spacious garage facilities are such an important and integral part of our operations that we felt it important to tell you about them.  They are another part of our facilities that set us apart from your other options when selecting a funeral provider.

          Firstly, the majority of our garage space is heated, well-lit with hot and cold running water, floor drains and are attatched to our main buildings.  Therefore, they are where our fleet of vehicles are hand-washed , dried and vacumed on a daily basis.  In the winter the cars also have the opportunity to dry properly to reduce the inconvenience and embarassment of frozen doors and locks.

          Secondly, as all of our vehicles are stored inside, they stay cleaner for when they are needed, they last longer, and ongoing maintenance and insurance costs are lower (helping us to keep costs and prices down).

          Our ample garage space also provides us with in-house storage of additional caskets and containers.  This allows us to provide families with even more choices in merchandise.  Something that we could not do if we did not have the storage space.

           Each garage area has a workshop area, complete with work bench, tools and equipment.  This makes it easier for us to do a great deal of our own general maintenance and upkeep on our buildings and (to a lesser degree) on our vehicles.  This too helps keep operating cost down, thus saving you money in the end. 

           The most important benefit of our garage facilities, is that it affords us the ability to load and unload stretchers and caskets, flowers, equipment, etc... inside our main buildings, in privacy, and safe from the elements.  We are fortunate that we have this ability, as not all funeral homes do.

the "Westfort Chapel" - Large 3-bay, heated garage, complete with workshop, storage and laundry facilities.  It can easily accommodate 3 large, full-sized funeral vehicles.

the "Waverley Chapel" - Total of 6 heated, and 4 unheated stalls, complete with workshop, casket shelving, storage, etc...  It typically houses 6-8 vehicles and our snowplow, and other maintenance-related equipment.

Limousine Garage - A separate facility where our limousines are housed, cleaned and maintained.  As we also rent them out for other special occasions, they need to be kept at a facility where they are available day and night without disruption to the visitors at the funeral homes.

           Now do you understand why our garage facilities are worthy of mention?

2. Our Preparation Rooms:                         

          The preparation room or operating room, is the place in the funeral home where the embalming and preparation of remains is done. This also includes the washing, dressing, cosmetics, and hairdressing as required, plus the casketing of remains. Years ago, pathologists also performed autopsies in the funeral home preparation room, but today they are performed in the hospital morgues.

          Most preparation rooms are not unlike a hospital operating room, except for the lack of new high-tech equipment that a hospital would have. They are normally bright and well-lit, the walls and floors are typically linoleum or tile to afford easy washing and disinfection. There is an operating table, surgical instruments, counters with sinks, and an embalming machine. There will also be embalming chemicals, cosmetics, hairdressing instruments, etc...

          For the safety of our staff and clients, and the dignity of the remains entrusted to us, we endeavour to keep our preparation rooms, neat, clean, and sanitary. As a business that falls under the jurisdiction of the public health officials, our facilities including our preparation rooms are subject to both annual and random inspection by the Health Inspectors and the Board of Funeral Services. Likewise, while the preparation room is not a place that is generally open to the public, we do make it an optional part of open houses and tours of our funeral homes (providing there are no remains present and it is not in use at the time). For those who are interested, being provided with a proper explanation of the embalming process, and seeing the preparation room, can give them a better appreciation of what we do and why it is important. It also can dispel many of the myths, mis-representations and fears of funeral service. This is also why we have included the preparation room in our web-site tour of our facilities.

3. Our Refrigerated Holding Facilities:

          Once death has occurred, changes begin happening very quickly within the body. Mother Nature begins reclaiming the body almost immediately, and while the decomposition processes may not be immediately evident, the body must either be embalmed or placed in a cool environment very quickly. If not, the unpleasant results will start becoming obvious.

          Today, embalming and viewing is not an automatic event. Likewise, families must approve the embalming and preparations prior to our proceeding. Therefore, refrigeration facilities are now an important part of our operations.

          When Bert Gardiner built his new funeral home in Winnipeg in 1930, he included a refrigeration facility for remains. Years ago, we in Thunder Bay relied on having the ability to use the facilities at the hospitals, for what few bodies we did not embalm. In 1983, in recognition of what the future would hold, we constructed our own walk-in refrigerated holding facility at our Waverley Chapel.

          Our unit was built, using an existing storage room which had 12 inch thick concrete walls. We added insulation, panelling, a metal-clad insulated door, an exhaust fan, and a large cooling unit. It has a total capacity of 7 remains, and while it was costly to install, and is expensive to operate, in our opinion we could not be without it today.

          For a variety of reasons, many funeral homes still do not have their own refrigerated facilities. They continue to leave unembalmed remains at the hospital until either the family approves embalming, or final disposition takes place. At our funeral homes, we believe that it is our responsibility to provide safe shelter for remains, regardless of whether or not they are embalmed or unembalmed. Therefore, our policy is to make the removal from the place of death as soon as realistically possible, once we have received a release from the medical attendant. It provides our client families with a sense of comfort, knowing that we are taking action and that their loved one is now in our care - not simply left lying in a hospital morgue.

4. Alarm Systems:

           The families we serve, have entrusted us with the last earthly remains of their loved one.  In turn, we must honour that trust by providing the safest environment possible for the care and shelter of their loved one.

           While the loss or damage to our facilities would be an inconvenience to us, the loss or mistreatment of someone's loved one would be unthinkable.  That is the reason why Alan Gardiner installed a fire alarm and security system in the Waverley Chapel in 1979, at a time when such sytems were very expensive.  Likewise, when we built our Westfort Chapel in 1996/97, we included a similar system without question.  Both buildings are tied directly to a profesional security monitoring company, who dispatch the police and/or fire departments when required. 

           Furthermore, when we experienced some teenage-related mischief at Westfort, we added security cameras and a video tape system.  If we ever felt the need at Waverley, we would install a similar system there too.

           While we have never experienced a fire or intrusion since we installed these systems, they are just another example of our care and concern for the families we serve.

5. Emergency Lighting and Generators:

          Both of our funeral homes have lighting, heating, and telephone capabilities in the event of a widespread power outage.

          Alan Gardiner added battery-powered emergency lighting to our Waverley Chapel over 20 years ago.  When we built our Westfort Chapel, we included similar emergency lighting that went far beyond what the building code required.  While these units are not a long-term solution to a power failure, they will last long enough to allow a funeral or evening gathering to continue without major interuptions.

          Our generator capabilites are something that some may snicker at, but we are most proud of.  Several years ago, after the increasing incidents of ice and snow storms in other communities, we began examining our own situation.  Some areas were having power interuptions of days and weeks.  From a building consideration, during the winter our funeral homes could not be without heat for several days without serious risk of damage.  Likewise, while some businesses could be shut down, "death doesn't take a holiday", and at least one funeral home in Thunder Bay would need to be operational, if only on a limited basis.  We decided to take action.

          Therefore, in the years when most people wer spending money upgrading their computers for Y2K, we prepared our facilities for the more possible and probable situation - power outages, regardless of the reason.  Today, for less than the cost of computer upgrades, both of our locations can survive and operate through a "long-term" power outage.  Our generators are not auto-starts, nor are they overly large, but they are wired-in properly and will provide us with basic heat, basic lighting, and telephones.  We also keep enough fuel on-sight to last a reasonable lenth of time.  Furthermore, we have written procedures inplace, if we ever were faced with such a situation.

           An interesting side-line to this story:  One of our city officials found out about our generator preparations, and was duly impressed.  As a result, both of our locations are included with the police and fire departments, and the Emergency Measures Organization as "Disaster Reception Areas".  Imagine, a funeral home being part of a disaster plan, intended to help the living!  Just another example of our service to the community in which we live and work.   

           Thank you for joining us on our on-line tour of our funeral homes, we hope you have found it interesting and informative.

 - John-Bryan Gardiner, Vice-President, Managing Partner.