Fort Chipewyan's Venerable Churches

Pages 1 | 2

There has been no resident Catholic priest since 1995, when the Church trained Métis elder Yanik, along with other local women, to perform many of the priest's duties. Although timid at first, Yanik has conducted dozens of funerals, baptisms, marriages, and regular Sunday services. After open-heart surgery at 82, she finally moved to Fort McMurray, but returned last winter, at 84, to conduct three funerals. Laviolette and others have continued the work. In 1874 teacher Alfred Garrioch built a little Anglican day school in Fort Chipewyan. He laid squared logs horizontally between mortised posts in a method called pièce-sur-pièce, or Red River frame, construction. The school is a rare example of this style in Alberta. The school was attended by children of the Hudson's Bay Company workers, most of whom were from the Orkney Islands in Great Britain, although a few were English-speaking Métis. Most Métis were French-speaking Roman Catholics, and held lower-ranking positions in the fur trade.

In 1880, missionaries and fur traders completed St. Paul's Anglican church, also in the Red River frame style. Although it was likely built by William Wylie Sr., an Orkneyman, the church shows evidence of French Canadian influence in the tall narrow proportions, pointed nave windows, and round oeil-de-boeuf  window. These elements are typical of both Anglican and Roman Catholic mission churches built in the late 1800s.

St. Paul's played a key role in the development of the Anglican Church in Alberta. The Right Reverend John Clarke, Bishop of the Athabasca Diocese, explains: "It has some very real historic significance. Alberta developed from the north, south. And the church developed in the same way. St. Paul's in Fort Chipewyan is what we call the mother church . . . . It was from that church that people were sent to other communities, the gospel was preached, and church communities were planted." From 1912 to 1926 it was a pro- Cathedral (the seat of the Bishop). "It does have the most beautiful Episcopal chair I've ever seen," says Clarke.

St. Paul's never became a Cathedral, however. The Canadian Pacific Railway was reaching west, and a web of northern rail routes would soon develop. Then, in 1899, the Hudson's Bay amalgamated its northwestern districts under an Edmonton office. The transportation and administrative hubs had moved south. An Historic Sites paper sums up the impact: "Fort Chipewyan entered the 20th century merely as one of many northern outposts facing the prospect of diminishing fur returns."

There has even been talk of closing the church, but the congregation is dedicated, if tiny. "I recognized in Marjorie the gifts of leadership right from the first time I saw her," says Bishop Clarke. Marjorie Glanfield, now 63, was at first intimidated by her role as Anglican priest of St. Paul’s.

"I found it hard to preach a sermon to the congregation because I felt like everybody knew me . . . everybody knows all about me." Now Glanfield loves her calling. When they gather on Sunday, she says, "We sing. We sing without music, just whatever we know and sometimes we don't sing the right tune, but that's ok . . . . We have an organ in the church but no one plays it"

A few years ago, St. Paul's was literally falling down. The bell tower was so unstable the congregation was afraid to ring the bell. "The floor had gone in the sanctuary . . . and the roof had a sway back to it," says Bishop Clarke. He doesn't mention the carpenter ant infestation or the broken stained-glass windows.

The Catholic church was in sad shape, too. The basement dug out of the lake sediment in the 1950s was flooding repeatedly. A 1993 technical report recommended a vapour barrier, insulation, and structural work to preserve the interior paintings, but first all the wiring had to be redone. Then in 1997 a provincial preservation advisor warned that, if the church was not heated continuously, "the painting by Bishop Grouard could be permanently damaged." Moreover, the foundations and interior paintings could be so damaged that the small community would be unable to bear the repair costs. "This could result in the buildings being demolished."

Yet getting formal recognition of Fort Chip's historic treasures, and money to maintain them, has meant many hours of often frustrating work for locals. Grant applications are time-consuming. The local museum does not have Internet, and its photocopier could be an exhibit. Access to heritage advisors and conservators to guide construction work is a problem. It costs 40 cents a pound to fly in anything from a loaf of bread to a bag of cement#8212;and the price just dropped from 60 cents. Freight on the winter road costs 23 cents a pound.

If the churches were in southern Alberta, they might attract more attention; Alberta Community Development acknowledges that distance has been a problem. Chen and his colleagues credit the local community, and Glanfield in particular, with keeping the churches in their field of view. "Oliver Glanfield has been the driving force for all these initiatives," says Monika McNabb, who handles funding for AHRF. He "deserves a great deal of recognition for his role and dedication to heritage preservation in Fort Chip" Bishop Clarke concurs. "The thing that has always impressed me about Fort Chipewyan—and I really mean this is the care that they have shown traditionally toward their churches."

The care is paying off. "The group there has done a very good job," acknowledges Chen. "We try to get them what they ask for" AHRF has approved matching funds of $36,700 for St. Paul's since 1997. The Anglican Foundation donated $10,000, the Madge Hogarth Foundation gave $7,500, and the local Anglican congregation itself raised almost $10,000. In 2000, AHRF gave the Catholic church $1,600 for an engineering study, and this year it will get $14,000 for foundation repair.

This is just a start. Laviolette says support is swelling: the regular congregation at the Catholic church has gone from about 10 to about 30 people in the last year, and they are selling plaques and holding raffles to fund more conservation work. "Over there on the Roman Catholic church they're going great guns," agrees Marjorie Glanfield, and says St. Paul's is also pushing forward. Perhaps Bishop Clarke summed it up best after visiting Fort Chipewyan in August 2000: "Instead of looking rather desperate as it once did, the church now stands tall and square, a real symbol of hope to the community it serves" *

Libby Gunn is a freelance writer who spent 18 months in Fort Chipewyan.

Pages 1 | 2

[Top] [Back] [Previous]