The Cathedral Church of St. Jude, Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

On Sunday I presided at Holy Communion at the English service at 9.45am and I preached from the lectionary gospel of the day.  The congregation reflects the multi-national community including Canadians, Africans, Fijians and South Koreans all of whom have English as a common language.  It was very special to share bread and wine together in Christ.  The bishop, Darren McCartney, assisted me at Communion and led the intercessions.  He spends 3 weeks in 4 travelling to his parishes all of which can only be reached by air.  His wife, Karen, resides here in Iqaluit and looks after the music in the cathedral while working full-time for the government of Nunavut, developing the crime prevention strategy for the various communities in the province. They keep in contact daily by phone or Skype.  I am looking after the English service throughout the summer.

At 11am there was a service of Morning Prayer conducted in Inuktitut the shape of which I could follow readily enough.  I preached and a lady Rebecca interpreted for me.  That seemed to go well.

At 7pm in the evening there is an informal service or praise and prayer.  This is in Inuktitut but the atmosphere of worship is tangible. So 2 hours seemed to fly by even though you could only occasionally recognise a hymn tune.  

Below are some photos of the Cathedral. In one photo you will notice a box of handkerchiefs on the communion rail.  There is a lot of brokenness in the Inuit community with high suicide levels and high levels of domestic and sexual abuse.  There are many hurting people.  In all services people come to the communion rail during worship to unburden themselves before God, often weeping, and they receive prayer.

From the door as you enter the Cathedral

Natural light from the roof 

On the left as you enter

On the right as you enter

The entrance as viewed from behind the communion table

View from the North side door

The sanctuary

The communion rail and pulpit are made from sleds and the hymn boards are sled-shaped

The cross is made from 2 Narwhal tusks

Front left is the choir

Front right are the piano and drums.  As this is a Cathedral it has a bishop's chair which is the tall chair on the left.

The communion table inscribed with "I am the truth. The truth will set you free".  The outside of the collection baskets are made from seal-skin. 

Sunsets and Rainbows

There are so many unique things here.  Even though it never gets dark, in fact it remains quite bright, you do get wonderful sunsets. Our apartment faces due south so when the sun goes below the horizon it stays light but the sky is afire.  The distant snowy mountains are bathed in evening light.  One evening a sunset mist on the ice gave rise to a beautiful rainbow at 11 o'clock at night! We have had to black out our bedroom window in order to sleep.

Normally in holiday places you don't think about it but for the locals here all this beauty is just part of their run of the mill day. Kids have just finished today for their Summer Break and are out late playing. People are in the supermarket getting food to feed their families.  There are people who obviously have problems and many that have problems that are not so obvious on the surface.  Life in all its variety and ordinariness is here in this place just short of the Arctic Circle. Most Canadians don't ever travel to "The North" as they call it. My brothers and their families have never been to this part of their country.  And we are here!  From the North to "The North".

Blessings,

Mike

The sun setting in Iqaluit

Rainbow after sunset

The old Hudson's Bay Company building in the small settlement of Apex , the original Inuit community in this area. The main settlement, Iqaluit, is 3 miles way and was developed to service a US airfield.

The little wooden Anglican Church in Apex where services are only in Inuktitut, not in English.

Coffee and Ice Flows

Didn’t want to share this story until Karen, the bishop’s wife,  came home. However she arrived back on Saturday and knows what happened. When we arrived at the airport in Iqaluit we were handed a bunch of keys including the parish office. Mike decided he would like a look in the Cathedral, so we headed over, opened the door, walked in and set the burglar alarm off!! Then the police turned up while we were frantically trying to find out who knew the code for the alarm. Thankfully the code was found and the police didn’t haul us off to jail. J It turns out the bunch of keys signifies that we are the caretakers of the parish hall and Cathedral while the Dean is away up North with his family.

The supermarkets are well stocked, however there is no proper chocolate and no wine! Actually I miss the chocolate most. There is no off licence in Iqaluit by law. Decaffeinated coffee is also hard to get hold of and the only brand of instant is N*****e. (I won’t give them the pleasure of free advertising). We stupidly bought some instant decaff and although it tasted ok it made us both feel rotten. Serves us right for buying N*****e.  Don’t buy the stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Food needs to be made with love and not exploitation!

While I did learn how to make soup for seventy people on Monday, there are loads of people helping out in the soup kitchen and I am not going to volunteer to make soup. I will only do it if I am asked. We are here to rest. The soup kitchen was just very overwhelming at first and a friendly place to go when we knew no one. It is also just next door to us.

Today we headed out for our first picnic. We headed out to Sylvia Grinnell Park in a car which has been leant to us.  I spent at least half an hour just watching the ice flow down the river. We then had a long walk through an almost mythical landscape. We passed boulders of ice, still pools, and a powerful river in full spate. The colours are amazing. Occasionally the ice is blue or green. The river is green – possibly as it is flowing over ice. Small rocks are occasionally bright pink and some are splashed with orange lichen. The plants are only just starting to grow again. There are soft willow flowers on branches clinging to the ground, tiny inch high rhododendron plants flowering purple and other purple and yellow flowers sporadically dotted amongst initially dead looking plants. Although on closer inspection they are starting to bud and even flower. The lichens are gorgeous, bright orange, pale yellow and greeny grey. There are also about fifteen tents dotted about the landcape. They are not currently occupied, so I suspect their owners work during the day and come out onto the land for the evening and night.

I do miss my kids and family, which I knew I would. I was under no illusions about coming here. I knew it would not be easy, even though it is also a great opportunity. Having the car is a big help as we can get out into the wilderness more easily but the furthest you can drive in any direction is three miles. It is good to have more time to read and to read the Bible. I also brought books written by the Iona community.  Books by members of the Iona Community tend to focus on God’s care for those in need and the beauty of God’s creation. Jan Sutch Pickard writes beautiful poetry on nature and passages from the Gospels. I also have a novel on the go by Alexander McCall Smith.

Snow on the beach near the town.

On the beach on the way out of town, taken on Tuesday 23rd

Lichen on the rocks by the sea, out of the town, on the way to Apex

Tiny flowers

Sylvia Grinnell River

Further down the green icy river

Mike at a safe distance from the river

An Inuit marker of good hunting ground - by the beach on the way to Apex

Tent in Sylvia Grinnell Park. The guy ropes aren't pegged down they are attached to stones.  The ground is hard!

Ice boulders by the river in Sylvia Grinnell Park

More of the river

P.S. I did see Dairy Milk in the garage store today (25th June), but I resisted. Another day perhaps.

Some first thoughts from Mike

It’s now 5 days since we arrived here and we have been through one Sunday.  In many ways it is all a bit overwhelming.  Iqaluit is the main city of the territory of Nunavut with 6000 inhabitants and all the facilities: supermarkets, cinema, hotels, gift-shops, museums, and library.  However it is still a frontier town, rough around the edges.  There is a ring-road of 3 miles of tarred road but the rest of the roads are gravel or compacted clay.  Most people drive trucks, 4x4 vehicles, rather than cars because the roads are tricky and in the winter it gets down to -50C.  And yet 1 in 3 of the cars is a taxi as most people can’t afford to own a car.  The taxis act as the public transport costing $7 (£3.50) per person per journey.  At the same time the city is a rectangle of 2 miles by 4 miles and beyond that there are no roads.  It is quite claustrophobic.  It is 75 miles to the next settlement of 450 people, Kimmirut, which has just 2 small shops for supplies.  There is no road to it.  It is 30 minutes by plane at a cost of £230 one-way or 6 hours by snowmobile in winter. You can’t just head off to Portrush if you want a change of scene.  There is no change of scene.   It forces you back to yourself. 

Despite its remoteness the whole world is here.  There is community of 70 Lebanese with their own restaurant.  There is a community of 200 Filipinos.  The women’s study group in the church were having their final evening and we were invited.  In that group there were Inuit, including the Premier’s wife, a lady from Trinidad, 2 or 3 from the Philippines and 2 African ladies.  One of the Inuit ladies’ husband was present and he is from Fiji.  He is a missionary to tribal peoples, his Father being a tribal chief in Fiji.  For the last 10 years he has been working with Indian tribal chiefs in Canada and the US.  He is here to work with the Inuit tribe.

We attended Church on Sunday.  There are 5 other churches but they are all non-Inuit.  Only the Anglican Church serves the Inuit community.  At 9.45am there is an English service and at 11am a service in Inuktitut.  In the Inuktitut service the liturgy is from the Canadian Book of Common Prayer with facing pages being in English and Inuktitut so it easy enough to know where you are.  Sunday morning was communion which was lovely.  From 7pm to 9pm there was a service of Praise and Testimony with the opportunity for individual prayer.  This was all in Inuktitut yet one could feel the presence of God.  The Inuit people have all kinds of problems.  One of our hosts said that she reckoned that as she had looked around all those who attended the Inuktitut service in the morning she could say that all had encountered suicide in their family.  It’s hard to imagine.  So there was lot of pain expressed as people were prayed for.  I had the privilege of praying for one young Inuit woman who wanted prayer to give her life to God.  God is a real refuge for these people.  Please pray for this young woman.

I will be preaching next Sunday at the English service and at the Inuktitut service, with an interpreter.  That should be interesting.  Pray for me that God will speak through me to them.

Some first thoughts from Sarah

Ok, I don’t feel like I can write well enough to do justice to this place, but for the sake of my mum and kids I will try. Yesterday we called over to the soup kitchen as we had been asked and we ended up helping out a bit and enjoying the delicious soup. There were plenty of volunteers yesterday, but Sarah who seems to run the kitchen asked us to come back. So we went over a bit earlier today and ended up there for a hard working 3 hours. We both helped prepare food, serve food and clean up. Fifty plus people were provided with lunch. After Sarah and Pudlo (a chef) left there were only Mike, Aud (from France), and me to serve and clear up.

All the people coming for food were Inuit. Some of them take extra food to eat later. One or two were deaf and a couple may have had special educational needs. Some of them work but struggle to make ends meet. Housing is very expensive here. Given that they were all Inuit – is it the case that at least in this small corner of the world that you are only homeless if close to home? The irony is that you will only be homeless here if you were born here. If you are homeless you can’t move somewhere better. There are two overnight shelters in town we think – one for women and one for men. The people who sleep there are not allowed to stay there during the day. One of the ladies has a pitch at the radiator in the entrance hall of the supermarket. She has a lovely smile. She doesn’t beg, just stands in the warm.

 On Monday morning Sarah is going to teach me how to make soup for 70 people. She asked me, I didn't volunteer - just to reassure my family I am not trying to overdo things, but responding to need. Sarah is heading away ‘back south’ on Monday week and Ed, another volunteer is heading south next month. In the Bible we are told to look out for the poor and the weak. So it feels like an incredible privilege to be able to serve these people. But there are huge issues for others to solve as to why so many people here are homeless. The good news in the Bible includes justice for the poor. At home I suppose I hope working with breastfeeding mothers is working for justice. Although I work with a wide range of mothers, all the babies are weak and helpless and I only get the opportunity to help breastfeeding mums who are less well off if I hone my skills with the better off. A friend and I do dream of a free clinic for breastfeeding help some day.

Arriving in Iqaluit on Baffin Island

Here are some photos taken from the plane as we approached the runway to land. The sea is still frozen and an ice-breaker ship will come mid-July to allow supply ships to get to land.

The terminal building is bright yellow so that it can be seen in a blizzard!

The frozen sea 150 metres from our apartment

Our apartment is on the first floor. As with all buildings it is built on stilts so that the heat from the building doesn't melt the permafrost below which acts as the foundation.

The view from our apartment with the Cathedral on the left and the soup kitchen and thrift store on the right. In the distance are the hills across the frozen sea.

Toronto

Arriving at Canadian Border 

At the Indy motor race - car spare parts on view.

The race cars. We managed to go on the free day. At the weekend the tickets were $250 plus.

At the race track on Saturday for one race! We spent a lot of time on buses to get here and then the kids had to listen to the 'gambling is bad news' speech from both of us! Going to the races with Mike's step-dad, a serious gambler, was part of Mike's childhood.

Saturday night for a short time at Niagara Falls. Earlier we had a lovely time at a party to do with our niece's voluntary work in Dominican Republic. 

Monday - The boat out to the Toronto Islands.

Toronto skyline shrouded in fog.

Taking a rest from our cycling.

A cool fountain on a hot day on the islands.

Bicycles made for two!

Its Tuesday - it must be Ottawa - the National Parliament buildings.

Back of the Parliament Buildings

View from the parliament buildings over the Ottawa river.