After the evening ordination service, Bishop Alexander Pryor graciously made time for a few questions from Perspective.

When asked about the size of the Diocese of the Arctic, he opened up a folded road map of Canada. Dotted across the Arctic from the Yukon-Northwest Territory border all the way east to the border of Northern Quebec and Labrador and north almost to the edge of the map were marked 49 communities scattered through the vast territory.

“Everything is so much more expensive in the north than it is in the south. Travel is infinitely more difficult. Going for a confirmation is normally a four-or-five-day trek, and if you hit a blizzard, it becomes a week…. These are all fly-in communities, so it’s a lot of time spent in airplanes…Many of these communities just have one flight a day. Some will have one flight every other day.

So that’s what brought you all to Ottawa?

It’s often easier and certainly much cheaper for us to meet anywhere in the South, really. We did our Synod last year in Edmonton, and that was wonderful, and half of the cost that it would have been. I mean, our diocesan Synod cost us almost half a million dollars. That’s what it costs to do Synod. And that’s doing it in the South and staying at a monastery. Had we done it within the boundaries of our own diocese, it would be at least three quarters of a million dollars if not more.

Can you meet online sometimes?

On the older Internet technology, you really couldn’t have a stable video call work, but now since Starlink has spread out across the North, we’re able to do a whole lot by Zoom. There are real limitations though, especially when you’re working across languages and dialects and just with the different styles of storytelling, depending on people’s cultures. Zoom works very well for a very linear sort of business meeting, but when we need to discuss and go back and forth and reach consensus and really check in to see if what’s being communicated and what’s being interpreted is what’s being understood, that doesn’t happen as well. Many times, we’re using interpreters.

That’s why meeting together like this and being able to read the room and take the breaks when we need to and stretch our legs and sing a hymn and do what we need to do to make sure that we’re all moving forward in the same direction and hearing each other. … We’ve never done something like this before, where we’ve gathered for three intense days. Our diocesan synods are usually a week to 10 days long, because we only do it once every three years….

Is the Church growing in the Arctic?

Yes, though not everywhere. We have some communities that are struggling as many churches in the south are, but we are seeing a new generation coming into leadership. It’s really a fascinating … sort of thing, where they have elders in their late 70s and 80s who have been running churches, hoping that their children would step up and be called to take those places. They’ve been praying faithfully, and now they’re seeing their grandchildren called into leadership, which is just really, really cool.

There’s one community that I visited earlier this spring where after years of the elders praying that the next generation would step up, now they have a group of people in their 20s, who said, ‘We want to be on the vestry. And they voted in a vestry where the average age is under 30. And they called and said, somebody come and train us what it means to run a church. It is just so exciting to have young people who are on fire for the Lord.”

In many ways, we’re running to keep up with what the Lord is doing, which is just a lot of fun. We recently replanted the church in Inuvik. It had been closed for five years. It was one of our parishes that didn’t survive COVID. They had their last service in December of 2020 and then locked the doors and the church closed down after years of the sort of decline that is typical in many churches. Thanks be to God, we were able to hold on to that building. There was no pressure to sell it.

After five years of being closed and people praying, ‘Do we need a church in our community?’ In the span of one week, there were three phone calls from different people who hadn’t been speaking to each other from different parts of the country saying, ‘I think the Lord wants the church reopened in Inuvik…’[including a woman who had previously worked with another organization doing youth ministry in Arviat and in Rankin Inlet.

She was considering giving up her job down south and going full-time into youth ministry in the North and had been praying about it. She came across an article Bishop Pryor had written saying we’ve closed the church down but we’re praying for a church planter to come and till the soil.]

So, I called my wife and said, Christine, I’m buying a ticket to Inuvik to see what the Lord is doing and flew up the next day …. The church had been closed and freezing and thawing for five years, and the power and heat were turned off.  But by the grace of God, we managed with a little bit of help from someone at the power corporation … to get the power reconnected for the weekend. And with some help from those in the community reopened the church on Saturday to have a meeting and just talk about what we wanted to do. We had a service that Sunday, and 45 people showed up. At the end of that service, they said, ‘This was great. What happens next week?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. That’s up to you.’ They said, ‘Well, we want to have church. … And they’ve had church every Sunday since that Sunday 13 months ago.”

They’ve got four or five now who take turns preaching and who take turns leading the service. And that woman who called, saying she was interested, I installed her in February as a full -time minister, lay minister, in charge of church planting that congregation in that place. … Just amazing stuff going on.”

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Those who came to St. Margaret’s on this September 30 listened to and watched a recorded message from National Indigenous Archbishop Chris Harper to Anglicans across Canada as the homily.

“It is a day that many churches across this land will pause and have special services. It is a day when many [at]… municipal gatherings will reflect and tell stories and will share the history that all of us have inherited in the residential experience. But that experience is felt in different ways, especially for the Indigenous people — how many were traumatized…. And it is them that we also need to uphold in prayer and honor their stories….”

He said he likes the new variation of the word reconciliation that has emerged: reconciliaction. “It’s something that we do together.” … September 30th is a day “for all of us to first listen to the truth of the other and the Indigenous experience and what they live in every day. I ask that you listen with an open heart and a prayer that we together may seek reconciliation together. Check your hearts for the fences and the gates of defense that may hinder you from the shared journey of healing and hope.”

Individual Anglicans and parish groups honoured the day in various ways, including wearing orange and reflecting on the history of Indian Residential Schools and colonialism in Canada during worship services on Sunday, Sept. 29.

A group of parishioners from St. Bartholomew’s in Ottawa accompanied Incumbent the Rev. Canon Catherine Ascah on a reconciliation walking pilgrimage through Beechwood Cemetery, reflecting on the history of residential schools as they visited the graves of Nicholas Flood Davin, an architect of the residential school system, and Duncan Campbell Scott, the superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913-1922. They also visited the grave of Dr. Peter Bryce, who was hired by the department to report on health conditions in the residential schools. His highly critical report called for major changes at the schools but was buried by the government at the time. He was forced to retire but later self-published his report. So many people leave messages of thanks at his grave that a mailbox has been placed there. They also paused at a plaque dedicated to Métis historian, journalist and author Olive Dickason, a key figure the study of Indigenous history in Canada. Other Anglicans took part in historical tours offered by Beechwood Cemetery and attended its screening of the film Spirit Bear: Echoes of the Past.

In Almonte, the Rev. Jonathan Kouri and parishioners from St. Paul’s attended and helped out as volunteers at a community event Reconciliation Through Art, which included an exhibit of works from Indigenous artists.

Kathryn Fournier, an Indigenous member of the diocesan All My Relations Circle (AMRC) led 15 people from her hiking group and AMRC co-chair Gwynneth Evans on a walk on the Chief Pinesi Portage Trail, which offers historical information about the Algonquin chief whose traditional hunting area surrounds the trail near the confluence of the Ottawa, Gatineau and Rideau rivers.

Fournier told Crosstalk the broad interest in September 30 is encouraging, but she thinks it is important for Canadians to know that residential schools were only one of the tools in the toolkit created to “eliminate the ‘Indian problem,’ which was seen as an impediment to the creation of Canada.” She mentioned The Indian Act as an example. “I hope that we use September 30, as well as June, Indigenous People’s History Month,… as times to better inform ourselves about the whole picture that goes way, way beyond residential schools.”

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The Rev. Canon Aigah Attagutsiak, who grew up in Arctic Bay (Ikpiarjuk), is associate incumbent in the parish of St. Margaret’s Vanier, which has a Inuit congregation as well as a non-Inuit congregation. She conducts services, offers sermons and pastoral care in Inuktitut in the parish and beyond. Aided by simultaneous translation in Inuktitut, much of the discussion centred on how much the need for care and services there is in the Inuit community beyond the parish, needs that far exceed what one priest and current volunteers can provide, and how Anglicans in the rest of the diocese may learn from Inuit how to act in solidarity with them for the changes they want to see.

There are thousands of Inuit living in Ottawa and the surrounding region. They travel or move to the South for a variety of reasons — to access specialized health care not available in the North and sometimes to accompany a family member in Ottawa for medical treatment, for educational and job opportunities, better housing and a lower cost of living. Some are only here temporarily, others move to the city permanently.

Whatever brings them to the city, Canon Aigah said it is common for those arriving to feel lost in a big city and culture very different from their own. They may be unaware of services and Inuit organizations that can help them navigate this new experience.

Bishop Shane noted in his remarks that because of the Anglican Church’s historical relationship to the Inuit in the North, many Inuit may look to the church for pastoral care, community, and support in Ottawa. Canon Aigah said that St. Margaret’s Inuit congregation can be a source of comfort and cultural connection.

“It’s so wonderful to be hearing the sermons in Inuktitut,” St. Margaret’s parishioner Jukeepa Hainnu said. She is an instructor at Nunavut Sivuniksavut, a two-year post-secondary program of Inuit Studies in Ottawa that will serve a cohort of about 70 students coming from all over Nunavut in the coming year. Hainnu explained that there is a huge rate of language loss. Among the youth that come to Ottawa, she said only about five percent speak Inuktitut. “And it’s very important that we have an Inuktitut church to support our language… because it is our grounding in who we are. And I think a lot of the youth lose their grounded image of themselves, and they have more problems because they don’t really know who they are.”

She added that at Nunavut Sivuniksavut, “We teach the history of Inuktitut, Inuit culture, and we see a big change in their attitude and way of understanding.”

The Rev. Colin McFarland, incumbent priest at St. Margaret’s, explained that the church is part of an ecosystem of Inuit organizations in the city, and anything that benefits St. Margaret’s Inuit congregation benefits the whole ecosystem and vice versa.

Canon Aigah is a key figure in the Inuit community. She is often called upon to visit Inuit in hospital or to conduct funerals. On the day of the consultation, she had only had a few hours of sleep because just as she arrived home from a visit to the North, she received a phone call to go to an Inuk person in hospital. This is especially challenging because she doesn’t drive and relies on others to help her get to all the people and places she is asked to go to, she said.

Deborah Tagurnaaq, who is Inuit advisor to the bishop, works closely with Canon Aigah and expressed concern about the high level of demand for her time and pastoral care. As someone with an extensive history of work in the Inuit community and in reconciliation work, Deborah spoke about how hard hit the Inuit community has been by the pandemic and opioid crisis in addition to other struggles such as addiction and violence. Inuit people go missing at an alarming rate, she said. She was relieved to receive a text from Ottawa police that morning notifying her that one of the three people they were currently searching for had been found safe. Deborah has become the person Inuit people call on for help when they have lost a loved one in Ottawa and she explained that she has helped repatriate the bodies of 22 people who have died in Ottawa to their families in the North – an long, labour intensive process that can take weeks.

This is one of the many areas where support is needed, Deborah said. “I cannot do it alone. Aigah cannot do it alone. We need search and rescue. We need a one-stop place where Inuit from the Arctic can look for information and keep contact with the family members.”

Dr. Vera Etches, medical officer for Ottawa Public Health, is also a St. Margaret’s parishioner and participated in the consultation. She observed that there is great strength and leadership in the Inuit-led organizations in Ottawa. “I think as the church is looking for direction it is important to listen to people here but also to listen to what these organizations are saying.” And affirming the dire situation Deborah spoke of, she said, “It is very important to hear about the mortality. It’s the worst possible outcome and it’s disproportionate and very real. Community members have ideas for solutions, but these organizations don’t have everything they need to implement solutions. I think that definitely includes housing, It definitely includes land to build housing, and it definitely includes spiritual care.”

Attempting to serve the large Inuit community in the city keeps St. Margaret’s parishioners busy too. Bernie Delmaire explained that St. Margaret’s has made attempts to offer spiritual care to Inuit people who are staying at Larga Baffin while in Ottawa for medical treatments. He and his wife Dora used to help with worship services there that were once held weekly and then reduced to monthly and ended during the pandemic. “There are 200 or more clients there at one time, and there is a real spiritual need that could be addressed if we could get on track to do regular visits there, but we most probably need support to get that going again.”

Delmaire added that they also tried providing transportation from Larga Baffin to St. Margaret’s, but the cost and distance from St. Margaret’s proved to be too much for the parish. “There are, however, some volunteers from St. Margaret’s that continue to pick up people from Larga Baffin to come to our church for Sunday services. It is really beautiful to have them there,” he said. “There is a very similar need at Embassy West [which provides long-term care for Inuit seniors] as well. We never could provide the service to them as we did at Larga Baffin, but there is a real need there as well, as there is usually around 75, 80 elders there that would gladly receive services from the church.”

As the time for the consultation drew to a close, McFarland reassured all who attended from St. Margaret’s, St. Stephen’s and St. Thomas the Apostle parishes as well as the All My Relations Circle that the expectation for the consultation was not to find immediate solutions but to begin to listen and learn. “It’s a humble, modest beginning. And this doesn’t need to be the end, but it can be a beginning of getting to know one another better,” he said.

Bishop Shane added, “As we have benefited from translation this morning, we need to continue to ensure that we can hear and understand one another from the language of our hearts, speak in our own way and be heard and understood. We’re not going to nail down solutions this morning. That’s too much for us to take. But we have heard need. We have heard of goodness that is happening. We’ve heard challenges. And I think God the Holy Spirit will continue to help us to hear in our own ways as individuals and parish communities that are here, and certainly in terms of our diocesan church.”

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The archbishop spoke to the deans about developments in the self-determining Indigenous Church. He explained that healing comes “when we start to walk together in respect, dignity, and understanding, but we need to know each other…. Listening, learning and opening of heart and mind are so important.”

When he visited the parish of St. Margaret’s, Vanier, he preached at both Sunday morning services. His homily for the English congregation was very personal and offered an opportunity for parishioners to get to know more about him. 

He focused on how much God’s love and power working in frail humans in the church and individual lives can do.  “It’s wide enough to reach out and embrace all of our doubts, our denials, and even our rejection,” he said.

He spoke about his own experience of trying to avoid and run away from God’s call earlier in his life. “God is patient, and … God is love because God is willing to send out even the likes of me into the God service. A man who needed to experience much, to do much wrong and to be enabled to speak and preach about it again in a true-life perspective or view. I’ve never, ever claimed to be the wisest or the best at anything and still God called and uses me to proclaim a message of love.” 

Along the way, he said he has learned “to see that it’s not about me, but about what God could do through us, the broken, in the ministry of the church.”

The archbishop said parishioners have ministries and callings that are “equally and maybe even more important…You go out back into your home communities. You … are the ones who talk to others, leaning over the fence and when you say those words, ‘Hey Jim, how are you doing? Oh, really? Okay, well, we’ll think about that, we’ll pray about that. Well, hey, why don’t you come to church with me?’ You see how this works? A minister can’t do that. You can.”

The Inuit congregation of St. Margaret’s welcomed Archbishop Harper with a Inuit song and drumming. The Rev. Canon Aigah Attagusiak translated the archbishop’s words into Inuktitut.

Drummer Ruben Komangapik, translated some of the words in the song into English: “I walk through this world, on this land, I step on a piece of rock, and I turn to you. You’re stomping your feet. I walk through this land. I step on this rock. I turn to you, and you’re understanding. I walk through this land, I step on this rock, now you’re following.”

The archbishop said he was incredibly honoured by the song, and he in turn, played a recording of a song from his own Plains Cree culture. 

“My people are the tall ones with long hair,” he said. “But one thing unites us as people of the land. We love to laugh. We love to smile and sing. And we understand what community is all about….We are one in the Creator’s love…We are blessed to know the land intimately, so much so we can be called people of the land.”

Then, he spoke of shared pain. “Our shared history with the church has been a complicated and broken relationship. For my people of the plains, we have been known as the people with the hair, and when they put our people into the schools, the residential schools, they cut our hair to remind us we are not connected to the land anymore. The symbols we use, whether it be a drum, or the songs we have as a people, the dances, the ceremonies, and even our own traditional food, [we] were told it was wrong.”

And the archbishop spoke of new hope: “But the church, much the same as the song, dear brother, learns that it walks on a new land in a new way, where I stepped on a rock, and I look back, and now you follow. Now they have a chance to open their hearts, their minds, and their eyes and to see the songs, the ceremonies we offer back, which builds the church as it should be, where we sing together and we celebrate together in our languages, in our way of song.”

He shared a story of how much this change in the church and the new self-determining Indigenous church means to him. “When I was in school to study to be a priest, one of my best friends was going to be ordained as a priest. I went to his service, and for the first time I smelled the prayers of the land. I saw a feather of prayer being held up, and I heard a drum song of honour being sung. I cried … because I did not think I would ever live long enough to see that in a church. I cried because I rejoiced, because the church was open enough to listen, to see, and to feel and know our people….

“All of us together. Know there are no limits now. The door has opened in the church to all of us. I see amazing preachers. I hear amazing songs in our languages. And I hear beautiful, beautiful hearts in what we offer together by lifting it up in prayer.” 

— with files from Jane Waterston

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