Spotlight on Beau "Lac" Funeral Home & Crematorium

Marianne Turcotte and Mark Muir are co-owners, managers and funeral directors at Beau “Lac” Funeral Home and Crematorium, Ltd. in Spirtwood, Shellbrook and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan with branch offices in Big River and Leask, Saskatchewan.

How was your funeral home founded, and how does it operate today?

Beau “Lac” Funeral Home and Crematorium was the vision of Delores Beaulac. She opened the doors in Spiritwood, Saskatchewan in 1994 and purchased the Big River branch office in 1995. Delores is an extremely hard working lady who is still involved with the funeral home as a licensed funeral director/ embalmer, and recently received her crematorium technician certification. 

She entered an industry, which at the time was predominantly male. Delores and her son, Ed, opened the Shellbrook location in 2007. In 2013, Ed and his wife Brenda brought on Marianne and Travis Turcotte to  open the Prince Albert location. In 2017, we welcomed Mark and Sheri Muir as business partners. Mark and Sheri had been owners of a full service funeral home in southeastern Saskatchewan for many years.

Since that time, Beau “Lac” Funeral Home & Crematorium has expanded the business by adding an intimate chapel to our Prince Albert location in 2018. In 2019 we purchased the Leask and Canwood, Saskatchewan locations. In the fall of 2020 we were honored to be asked to assist Lac La Ronge Funeral Home with whatever services and products they require to provide the best for the families they serve in northern Saskatchewan, and in the spring of 2021 we added a state of the art crematorium, which further enhances the level of service we are able to provide families.

What is the most rewarding part of working in funeral service?

Certainly, the most rewarding part of funeral service is the honor and privilege of assisting families at one of the hardest times in their lives.

What does your funeral home do in order to create a strong community presence? Do you believe that is important?

Our funeral homes are able to create a strong presence in the communities we serve by maintaining a high level of involvement with local charities and special local events. As well, our team members are volunteers of a diverse group of organizations and this allows them to be visible in the community as both dedicated and approachable.

In what ways do you use technology to further the services you offer?

Technology, most especially digital marketing, has allowed us to greatly increase our audience. Utilizing social media such as Facebook and Instagram as a way to reach the consumer has proven especially effective.

What growing trends have you noticed in the funeral service profession? How do you keep up with these changes?

Some industry trends we have recognized and addressed are the decrease in traditional funeral service, both by way of the choice of cremation over traditional burial and in the actual funeral service delivery. In order to meet these trends, we firstly added our own crematorium. Secondly, we recognized that families are looking for unique and special celebrations that deeply reflect their loved ones. The addition of a Certified Funeral Celebrant to our team has allowed for the kind of personalized and memorable events our families seek.

Is there anything in particular that you do at work to keep your spirits high or the spirits of your staff high?

Placing great value on our team members keeps morale high and we are fortunate to be able to maintain a professional yet family-like atmosphere. The inability to gather informally due to the pandemic only further demonstrated the level of closeness we enjoy as a team. We also take a keen interest in the hobbies, activities and accomplishments of our team outside of the workplace, offering our support to each other with personal endeavors. 

What are three future goals that you have in mind for your funeral home?

For the past two years, we have been voted the “Best of the Best” funeral home in Prince Albert and received the same accolade for two of our funeral directors. We would love to accomplish a “hat trick” for this award going forward!

We believe that as we continue to grow as a company, it is of the upmost importance to treat every family we are honored to serve with the best service and the most cost effective options for them. Marianne and Mark will always run this company by our moto, “Exceptional, Not Expensive."

We are brand new members to the OGR and are proud to hold the same core value of treating each family as we would treat our own. We were also pleased to see an established Awards of Excellence scholarship program. Finally, we hope to encourage OGR membership with other independent funeral homes in our province.

This message was originally published in the Spring 2022 issue of The Independent® magazineClick here to read the entire issue.

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