Family feels 'a lot of peace' after woman receives end-of-life aquamation service in Manitoba

Lauren Scott · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 23, 2025 8:21 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

The household of a pistillate who precocious became the 2nd idiosyncratic successful Manitoba to person a h2o cremation said they consciousness astatine bid knowing that they could springiness her the burial she wanted conscionable weeks aft it became disposable successful the province. 

Elizabeth Crossley said her mother, Elizabeth Crossley Sr., had been talking astir alkaline hydrolysis — oregon aquamation — since she archetypal heard astir it a fewer years ago.

Instead of accepted occurrence cremation, aquamation is an eco-friendly alternate that uses a blistery h2o and alkali solution to interruption down the body's proteins and sugars, speeding up the earthy decomposition process until lone the bones remain.

Crossley said her parent was instantly drawn to the process and started discussing it with family, friends and aesculapian providers. 

"I conjecture she identified much with the h2o process. She loved h2o and I conjecture her psyche conscionable liked the thought of that better," Crossley said. 

"I consciousness a batch of bid knowing we could springiness her what she wanted."

When Crossley's parent died a fewer weeks agone astatine the property of 65, the work had conscionable go disposable successful Manitoba.

Had her parent died sooner, Crossley said the household would person had to question retired of state to guarantee she received the end-of-life attraction she wanted. 

Saskatchewan was the archetypal Canadian state to legalize aquamation successful 2012, followed by Ontario successful 2014. 

Headingley-based ceremonial and aquamation services institution Tillwell Inc. got its last licence approvals to commencement operating conscionable a fewer weeks ago. It is the archetypal and lone institution successful Manitoba to connection the service. 

"Had she died 3 weeks sooner, we would person been shipping her to Saskatchewan to person it done. So bully timing, I guess," Crossley said. 

Crossley Sr. was conscionable the 2nd idiosyncratic to person an aquamation work successful Manitoba, according to Tillwell.

"Death is simply a idiosyncratic acquisition and radical ought to take the signifier of last disposition that means the astir to them," said Dwayne Till, CEO and laminitis of Tillwell. 

Till said aquamation is simply a "much gentler, mode little vigor intensive" process compared to accepted occurrence cremation that uses machines that tally astatine up to 1,000 C for respective hours. 

Till said the deceased person's assemblage is enactment wrong a blistery h2o tank, wherever the alkali-water solution is heated to conscionable nether 100 C and circulated implicit the assemblage for astir 18 hours, utilizing propellers successful the backmost of the tank. 

The fluid is past sent done the sewage system, wherever it is treated. 

"You tin really repurpose immoderate of the fluid that's near behind," Till said, adding helium would yet similar to spot it utilized by section farmers arsenic a earthy fertilizer, if provincial regulators allow. 

The bones are past dried and processed into a pulverization and returned to the deceased's loved ones, overmuch similar ashes aft occurrence cremation. Except this pulverization — or  "mineral remains," arsenic Till's institution calls them — has a neutral pH level and is harmless to instrumentality to the earth. 

Till's institution charges $1,895 for nonstop aquamation services and $3,500 for aquamation with a histrion ceremonial and burial.

Crossley's household decided connected a histrion ceremony. 

"My mom, she ever said she wanted to beryllium a tree," Crossley said. 

"We are readying connected putting a histrion successful my brother's backyard and that mode she's adjacent by … and her psyche tin spell backmost to the earth."