Over the course of its 150-year history, Saint James’s Church at Manotick faced the problems of growth, in particular the conundrum of responding to the pressures of owning a heritage building.

Saint James’s Church originally was built in 1876 on land donated by Moss Kent Dickinson, owner of the large stone village gristmill at Long Island, who was mayor of Ottawa for a time.

Saint James’s was built in a developing village and became one of the signature architectural features of the village. Its builders could not have anticipated the pressures of a growing congregation. Fortunately, there was nothing in its development to match the grisly event that happened at Dickinson’s Mill a mere 100 yards upstream 15 years earlier.

In early March of 1861, Joseph Merrill Currier and Moss Kent Dickinson organized a day of festivities to celebrate the first anniversary of their stone gristmill. Part of the day’s activities included a tour of inspection of the mill itself attended by Currier and his wife Anna. A smiling Anna, elegantly dressed and coiffed in the fashion of the day proudly took her husband’s arm and strolled through the building. All the machines were turned on to show friends and officials alike the power of the water turbines. No one could speak above the noise, and all marveled at the mill’s technology and delighted in its obvious success.

Then suddenly, as if out of a nightmare, Anna lost her balance. She fought to keep a hold on her husband’s arm, but her billowing crinoline was caught in one of the machines. Her friends and guests, standing only a few feet away, were powerless to help. Her screams were barely audible above the noise, and as her husband and guests watched in shocked horror, Anna was sucked into the machine, hurled against its post, and killed before the machine could be stopped.

Fifteen years later, Saint James’ Church was an essay in carpenter Gothic, with porch and vestry wings. Notably, it had no tower. From 1877, the congregation at Manotick was part of the Parish of North Gower with nearby congregations worshipping in churches located at Kars, North Gower and the 1st Concession of Osgoode Township.

Saint James’s Church grew. And steadily. So much so, that by 1887, it headed the Parish of Manotick, with churches at the outlying stations of Kars and Osgoode. It was at that time that the house of worship was raised on a new foundation. Fifteen years after that, in 1902, we are told that the church was “greatly improved” by enlarging the nave and building a bell tower with battlements on the front. By this point, the house of worship no longer bore much resemblance to the house of worship first put up just a quarter of a century earlier.

It is curious how parishes become inured, even accepting of change. What once seemed startling comes to be treasured and even taken for granted as having always existed. Change often is forgotten. The fiftieth anniversary of Saint James’s Church was celebrated in 1926, with many parishioners somehow assuming that the building had always existed in its then current form from the beginning. They came to assume that the tower had always been in place. As growth continued, in 1946 the basement was made into a parish hall.

In the black and white photograph shown here, Saint James’s Church was barely able to contain an AYPA (Anglican Young People’s Association) conference that took place in the village circa 1950. Indeed, by 1958, such was the growth of this congregation that Manotick had become a one-point parish, with Saint George’s Church, Hawthorne briefly serving as an out-station in 1978-1979.

Which brings us to the conundrum faced by parishioners at Saint James’s Church in the 1980s. For by then, the house of worship no longer could hold the congregation.  What were they to do?

Previously there had been four solutions to such a dilemma elsewhere across the Diocese of Ottawa. The first was to retain the old church and integrate it with a larger new worship space, as had been done at All Saints Church, Westboro and at Christ Church, Bells Corners.

A second option was to send their venerable house of worship to a heritage site such as Upper Canada Village, and build anew elsewhere, as Christ Church, Moulinette had done.

Yet a third option was to tear down the old church and put up a larger more modern building, as Saint John’s Church at Iroquois did. This was a controversial option, given the many ties to the old church, as in local minds it defined Manotick, much as did Watson’s Mill.

And fourth, the congregation could decide to abandon the old church and build at a new site, as had been the case when Saint John’s, Merivale was abandoned for Saint John the Divine, Nepean (long since burned down) in the 1960s.

None of these solutions precisely suited the good Anglicans of Manotick. To begin with, the congregation did not want to leave their site. There was the matter of strong local appreciation of built heritage that did not take kindly to tearing down a focal building from the past, especially as the author of the recently published The Architectural Heritage of the Rideau Corridor, Barbara Humphreys, was a member of the parish.

A compromise (which did not please heritage folk) was decided on. The decision was made to tear down the old church and design a larger building to look exactly like it, incorporating such architectural elements from the old such structure as the stained glass windows in the new.

Worship services were held in the Royal Canadian Legion hall for 10 months while the old church was taken down and the new one built. The colour photograph here shows a crane in place just before a wrecking ball levelled the old house of worship after various architectural components to be saved had been removed.

A new much larger church, capable of sustaining future growth, arose on the site of the old house of worship.  Curiously, it looked very much like the church that had stood on the site for a century, incorporating many of the features that had accumulated over the decades, such as the stained-glass windows.  Bishop Edwin Lackey conducted the dedication service in the new church on 10 March 1985, and 17 years later Saint James the Apostle Church was consecrated by Bishop John A. Baycroft on 24 October 1993.

And now, Saint James the Apostle Church at Manotick is celebrating its 150th anniversary as a centre of Anglican worship. Thanks to its much larger fabric, it is a dynamic parish of the Diocese of Ottawa.

If you would like to help the Archives preserve the records of the Diocese and its parishes, why not become a Friend of the Archives?  Your $20 membership brings you three issues of the lively, informative Newsletter, and you will receive a tax receipt for further donations above that amount. 

Diocesan Archives 51 M4 11

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Several events are planned throughout the year to bring both long-time parishioners and the wider community together.  Join us on May 9 at 7 pm for Our Story in Song, a curated choir concert featuring choral favourites. 

This will be followed by the city-wide Doors Open Ottawa on June 6. St. James’ historical displays will be set up in Tomkins Hall.

On June 13, the celebration takes a nostalgic turn with the “Over the Decades ACW Tea,” hosted by the Anglican Church Women. 

Younger members of the community can also look forward to a historical scavenger hunt in the summer.

And even more events are being planned throughout the year. See www.stjames-manotick.ca for more details.

Storytelling project

As part of the sesquicentennial, the church is embarking on a storytelling project. The goal is to collect 150 vignettes from past and present parishioners to create a living history of the congregation.

While the anniversary is a time for reflection, it also serves a practical purpose for the church’s physical heritage. A primary fundraising goal for the year is the urgent refurbishment of the East Window.

The restoration is a major focal point of the anniversary campaign. In a creative nod to the project, congregants can track fundraising progress in real-time by watching a stained-glass window drawing in the narthex, which will be «filled in» as donations reach milestones.For more information on these events, contact the organizing team at 150th@stjames-manotick.

— The Rev. John Holgate is the Incumbent at St. James, Manotick.

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Sharing the story of The Gathering, as it has come to be known, with members of Synod last fall, the Rev. John Holgate, incumbent of St. James, said that contextual mission involves asking the question: “How is God calling us to proclaim the good news in a way that is shaped by the realities and concerns of our current context, our time and our place?” He described Manotick as a former village that has become a sort of far suburb of Ottawa. In 2023, in the wake of the pandemic, people were still nervous about public gatherings, sometimes still wearing masks.

The idea for encouraging people to start getting together again began with the Rev. Bill Byers, a retired priest of the diocese, who is the honorary assistant at St. James. “It really struck me about how many people felt isolated and were not coming out to things… We had been a community that got together, often several times in the week, and we weren’t doing that anymore. I was also widowed, and as a result I was feeling the same sort of thing,” he told Perspective. “I thought if we could get together for the whole purpose of just being together for food and fun and fellowship … and have no other ulterior motive than just simply to be hospitable and enjoy each other’s presence.”

Byers suggested it and the parish liked the idea. He led the way to create a monthly gathering with a meal, entertainment and fellowship.  The parish agreed to underwrite the costs and to treat the event as an outreach effort. They spread the word primarily through the church’s channels and hoped for 40 people to attend. Seventy-five registered.

The Gathering is now in its third year with steady attendance of 85 to 100 people, about 35% of whom are non-parishioners. It not only draws the neighbours, but some people drive from Barrhaven and Bells Corners. “Apparently some sort of need is being met,” Holgate said. “We have a lot of fun themes… We celebrate fall, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. We have a summer picnic. Interestingly, I sometimes hear that our themed events are the only opportunity that some attendees have to observe those holidays or those seasons.”

The Gathering continues to grow. Holgate said that the Christmas event in December was their largest attendance yet, and the parish hall was filled to capacity.

It’s a simple formula, Holgate said. “You get a hearty lunch, you get entertainment, which is usually musical, Eastern Ontario talent. We pay the talent. It’s free to attend. We do accept free will donations. And it happens every month on a consistent day.

“During the meal, I eat on the fly, wandering around the tables, just saying hello to people. We don’t do any sort of overt evangelization. The only church-related things we ever do are saying grace before the meal and occasionally pushing baked goods from the ACW. But at nearly every event, … at least one person brings up some kind of pastoral ministry-related concern. As I wander, I hear … about the people who come for respite care away from looking after their spouse at home, or the people who bring their unwell spouse with them for what is sometimes a once-monthly outing for that person. People who are lonely while living alone, even those who are living in a retirement home. They’re alone in a community of 150 people in the same building, people who are fresh out of hospital or who are about to go in….Some become new parishioners,” he said.

It’s a self-sustaining ministry, Holgate added. Byers organized three teams do the cooking, as well as set up and tear down teams. “We have the entertainment finding person or the impresario… who actually … belongs to the Catholic church in town. Only one event ever has lost money … and that was during an ice storm….We have the rarest of programs, an outreach ministry that makes money, even though that isn’t the goal,” Holgate said.

“How can we tell that we’re building community? …The noise level is incredible. The feeling is great. People moving from table to table to say hello to people they haven’t seen in a month, sometimes in a year. We surveyed people a year ago to ask what they would like to change about the gathering. The overwhelming response was to change nothing, leave it alone, because it’s so simple — food, fun, fellowship.”

Building new worshipping communities: the challenge

At diocesan Synod last fall, Archdeacon Mark Whittall reminded everyone of “the vision that we set out for ourselves at Synod 2023: We will be a spirit-led church equipped for contextual mission. And at that time, we gave ourselves two goals. First, that by 2028, every parish in our diocese will be engaged in a new or renewed contextual mission initiative. And second, that by the 135th anniversary of our Diocese, which is in 2032, we will have created 35 new worshipping communities.”

The Contextual Mission Subcommittee, which Whittall co-chairs, provides parishes with resources to support contextual mission. “We offer you resources for prayer, courses for both leaders, individuals, and for parishes, parish groups, facilitation and coaching, a guide to help you with your discernment, and even cold, hard cash — Future Fund grants to fund your initiatives.”

Although the goals might seem challenging or even daunting, Anglicans have a deep history of serving their communities, and Whittall noted that the diocesan church was well on its way to meeting those goals. “We have initiated intentional communities, innovative worship services, forest church, meal programs, jazz vespers, playgroups, wish lists, milk bag mats, and the list goes on.”

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Through the parish Indigenous Relations Circle (IRC), with a grant from the Diocesan Healing and Reconciliation Fund, they contributed to healing, reconciliation and understanding through the following activities:

• Designed and implemented a healing garden on the lands adjacent to the church
• Provided support for a local healing forest at Misiwe Ni Relations Healing Lodge
• Listened to and learned from Elders and Knowledge Keepers about cultural and tradition
• Connected with local Indigenous communities and cultures
• Learned the history and truths through educational events 
• Integrated Indigenous process/worldview and advancing reconciliation as a spiritual practice

 “We were inspired to create the healing garden at St. James after seeing the Healing Garden at the Misiwe Ni Relations Healing Lodge near Manotick in the spring of 2022,” parishioners John Herity and Terry Tomkins recall.

Support and advice from Elder Denise Anne Boissoneau, Jenny Šâwanohk, local Indigenous community partner and owner of Misiwe Ni Relations Healing Lodge, and Knowledge Keeper William Mameanskum were integral to IRC discussions as they designed and created the healing garden. The garden will be named Minaadendamowin, an Ojibway word meaning respect, which is also one of the Seven Grandfather Teachings. 

 “We hoped to create something at the church to advance reconciliation as a spiritual practice and show respect for Indigenous partners,” the Indigenous Relations Circle explained. “We connected the land, relationships, the people of our parish, and the community. The garden became a reality through a consensus-based process and engagement with Indigenous partners. The response from the parish and Indigenous partners was overwhelmingly positive.”

In 2024, St. James hopes to install signage and education panels describing the garden’s main features and planting that represent Indigenous ways, beliefs and practices. The garden is 28 feet in diameter, reflective of the lunar cycle and symbolic of the Turtle shell. The four main beds reflect the Indigenous medicine wheel and are oriented in the four directions: East (yellow, with ceremonial tobacco); South (red, with cedar); West (black, with Canadian purple sage); and North (white, with sweetgrass). These colours were used in painted river rock borders. The central focal point is a large boulder from the church property, which can also be a support for ceremony. There are four benches where visitors can enjoy quiet contemplation and participate in education discussions, both planned and spontaneous. There is also a large amethyst stone, near the entrance, protecting the garden and welcoming visitors, directing them to the centre along mobility-friendly pathways.

Shirley Hilchuk, one of the parishioners who has volunteered to water the garden, said, “The garden is one step towards reconciliation by educating others and showing respect for Indigenous beliefs and values.”

2024 will be the first year for Minaadendamowin Garden to be a place for sharing and learning throughout the growing season. St. James’ IRC is working to have the healing garden recognized as part of the National Healing Forest Initiative, started in 2015, (nationalhealingforests.ca). All are welcome to visit the garden at any time. 

In addition to the garden installation, our community advanced our understanding of the history and truths of colonialism and its impact through a Kairos Blanket Exercise. The learning event was held on Oct.1 in honour of the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. About 30 participants from St. James, Manotick United Church, and Misiwe Ni Relations Healing Lodge were joined by Indigenous facilitators, John Henri and Julien Commanda, whose personal insights enriched the experiential learning experience.

It is with deep gratitude and respect that we say miigwetch to Indigenous partners and thank you to the Diocesan Healing and Reconciliation Fund for making this possible! 

—Indigenous Relations Circle and Convener, Sharla Sandrock

Thoughts from Indigenous Knowledge Keepers

I see hope for reconciliation in these projects. The design for this garden came from the one that I created on my home property over 10 years ago. It was quite a bit larger, and I could not care for it on my own. I have since moved and it has weighed heavy on my heart. 

I have realized that these endeavours and sacred spaces require a community of love, care and support. We are in the time of mending the Sacred Hoop, and it requires everybody’s efforts. Having a garden created for All to visit, and one that is rooted in our Indigenous Spirituality (which is very similar to the foundations of Christianity) is reconciliation at its best. We were removed from our Land, and this is a symbol of how we are not only welcomed back onto it, but in the principles of that which caused our removal in this first place: our Sacred and Spiritual ties to the Land. It is so healing. It’s also very important that our Indigenous voices are not only heard, but are leading the projects. It takes a simple land acknowledgement beyond a courtesy, to the actioning of what an acknowledgement actually means. -— Jenny Šâwanohk

The participation within was created by the Indigenous Circle among our homes, online and in community. We earned mutual trust, interconnecting our first step on the land. The eagle feather’s guidance symbolized spiritual practices within our church. Minaadendamowin Garden widened the learning and growth that arose from the wisdom of the land, healing and our encounters. We gathered, listening to elements of human nature relating the rocks, water, fire, and air as sacred breath. Faith, through spiritual leadership, cultured wholeness of one heart and mind. 

—Denise Anne Boissoneau

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