Welcome to Happy Woodland, an abandoned Pet Cemetery.
This cemetery, Canada's first pet cemetery, was started in 1933 and had it's last burial occurring sometime around 1975. Since that time the cemetery has sadly been left abandoned by it's current owner, though I believe the town has a plan in place to protect it. It's known that somewhere close to 200 family pets were buried here.
Rumour has it that an Eaton family dog is also buried here, once belonging to the very famous founder of the Eaton's retail chain, though I've yet to find any evidence of this.
There is a ridiculous amount of historical information available online for this location - I don't want to steal and reiterate it all here! (as requested, see below for history & sources!) I suppose one would normally find this to be a sad place to come across, but frankly I'm inspired and a little awestruck by the amount of compassion that obviously went into a place such as this...The landowner for lending his land and time to the memory of beloved animals, and the owners for giving their pets the honor of a traditional burial and tombstone to mark their final resting place. I wish I had somewhere special like this close to home to remember my cat when she eventually passes.
Anyways, Tips for anyone going (just let me know if this violates the rules!):
A lot of the information already available to the public makes this pretty easy property to find, but as a warning to anyone that goes to check it out:
it's in the middle of a forest, so finding the actual cemetery can be HARD. This probably plays big on the time of the year you go, but most of the graves are so overgrown and sparse that I practically walked right through the cemetery before realizing it! On return visits I've found that the best way to find the cemetery once you're in the forest is to look for the unique ground-cover greenery that covers most of the cemetery floor. It can be pretty hard to miss once your looking for it - just look for where the forest floor suddenly turns REALLY green. (it's the small green plant in all of the pictures)
1. "Our Dear Pets. They lived happy and died beloved." (incase you're wondering, the animal statue on top is missing a dogs head in the middle)
2. Here sits close to 200 pet graves slowly being eaten by forest.
3. ...Actually, "slowly" seems to be a relative term for some of these markers.
4. Some of these graves with relatively simple stones...
5. ....And some of them with fancy, expensive tombstones.
6. There are tons of graves for dogs...
7. And Cats...
8. But I also came across what seems to be a bird grave...
9. As well as a Jewish one!
10.Here is the oldest (and easily most offensive) grave I found! -- if someone finds this offensive and needs me to take it down just let me know.
11.
"Friend of the human race" - I think that about sums it up!
History:The man behind the cemetery was a Victor Blochin and his wife Anne Elizabeth Wilson. Blochin was a Russian count who served in World War I and was taken as a POW in Germany. While captured Victor became friends with a fellow captive by the name of Angus Campbell; Lord of Dunstaffnage Castle in Scotland. Campbell was an enthusiast of West Highland White Terrier-breed dogs, and shortly after the war Blochin travelled to Scotland where Campbell gifted Blochin with one of his bred "Westie's", which Blochin named Snejka and apparently took quickly too.
Not long after this Blochin came to Canada with a son of his gifted Snejka and started what would what would become the world-renowned Bencruachan Kennels on his Silverdale(?) Farm in Aurora, Ontario (named for this Scottish mountains that his original Westie came from). Apparently he was quite taken with Scotland as he also built his house in a fancy Scottish styling.
Through the years the Bencruachan Kennels would become well known and respected amongst the dog breeding (and more specifically Westie) community around the world - infact, the first ever terrier group competition topped by a Canadian dog was one of Blochins Westie's!
He went on to win several awards for the dogs coming out of his Bencuachan Kennels - so much so that there is now a trophy named for him: the Victor Blochin Memorial Trophy. Perhaps even more interesting is just how many pedigree's still carry on that owe some of their ancestry to a dog bred from Bencruachan. Also quite interesting is that many of these award-winning dogs were sired by the original son of Snejka. This son was eventually to become the first burial to take place in Happy Woodland in 1933.
Victor passed away in 1978. According to his step-daughter (???), his wife passed away after being struck by a car on Yonge Street...though there is also a news article from 1946 that clearly says she passed away of an illness...not sure what's up with that. I think maybe Victor remarried after his first wife died, and this daughter belongs to that second wife? Idk.
Anyways! His [first?] wife, Anne Elizabeth Wilson, has quite the interesting story of her own. She was born in Kentucky being the only daughter of the psuedo-famous American poet/painter Robert Burns Wilson - her mother being the daughter of a former Attorney General of Kentucky as well as an accomplished concert singer in her own right. She was also the cousin of lawyer Thomas Nelson Page, the U.S. ambassador to Italy during WWI.
Anne Elizabeth graduated from college and went to work as a journalist in New York before removing to Canada around 1920 where she eventually went on to become the first Editor-in-Chief of the famous CHATELAINE magazine. She retired from Chatelaine after marrying Blochin. She continued writing for many years, serving on the board of the Canadian Women's Press Club, and also writing several books. Her final book, "That Dog of Yours" (1941) was famous for having a photograph of a "ghost dog"; apparently the photo was taken at Happy Woodland!
After Blochin passed away the property continued to be used as a kennel and animal shelter/adoption center for a number of years. Sometime around 2000 it closed down for good.
Sources: 
