Bayside Cemetery offers a natural burial option, which reduces one’s environmental footprint compared to conventional interment or cremation. Bayside is one of few cemeteries in the North Country that has set aside sections dedicated to natural burial.

Natural burial is an interment with only biodegradable materials. There is no embalming of the body and no burial vault. A casket is optional but must be made of compostables such as wood or wicker, but no metal.

The burial must occur soon after death. In the winter, the client will incur more costs, but natural burial is still possible.

The interment is slightly less deep than a conventional vault interment, but the plot will be landscaped like those around it. A monument is still welcome. The group arranging the burial may organize and perform much of it or engage a funeral director.

“Natural” was the only way to inter bodies before the Civil War, when families began demanding that their fallen soldiers be returned home for burial. Embalming made that possible.

Bayside is a “hybrid” cemetery, meaning that natural graves will be on the same landscape as conventional casket graves. The cemetery has both a riverside section and a wooded section of lots set aside and dedicated to natural burial.