The trailer, even more than the splendid old building, definitely needed adornment to inspire the worship of the people
BY JULIA FLUMERFELT
During the first half of April in 2004, Catholic lay leader Jean Voysey of Kugluktuk mission received an agonized telephone call: “The church is burning!” the caller cried. Despite the efforts of firefighters, nothing was left after twelve hours of combat but “burned rubble.”
The beautiful church, aptly named “Our Lady of Light,” had been a treasure-trove of Inuit art and traditional culture. The ceiling was fashioned to resemble an igloo, and the walls were attractively varnished. Whalebone work adorned the ambo (pulpit). “It was a tourist attraction in its own right,” commented a neighbour.
Nothing in the church was more spectacular than the unique set of sealskin tapestries sewn by local artists and hung lovingly throughout the church. The community’s beloved priest, Father Olvia Lapointe, who retired in 1992 after serving in Kugluktuk for fifty years, had commissioned fourteen hangings, depicting the Stations of the Cross. At the time of the fire, there were, behind the church’s altar, two more sealskin wall-hangings: one of the Crucifixion, the other of the Last Supper. All were devoured by the flames.
In the short time during which the present congregation had been organizing weekly services in the church, the little flock had shown itself determined to remain a faithful outpost of God’s people in Kugluktuk. In May of2004, the parish council of Our Lady of Light met to come up with a resolution outlining plans for the re-construction of their church. At the time of writing, these plans have been acted upon, and services have resumed in the new building, a double-wide trailer sent up to Kugluktuk by barge from the South.
The trailer, even more than the splendid old building, definitely needed adornment to inspire the worship of the people. A cultural grant from the Hamlet of Kugluktuk enabled artists in the community to purchase new sealskins, and the project tore-create the one-of-a-kind Stations of the Cross tapestries was underway. By then, it was the year 2009.
First, especially-cured sealskins in black and beige had to be purchased from Ontario, as local uncured hides could not be used. The images to be sewn into the skins were first sketched on paper by the very talented Alan Niptanatiak. Each sketch was traced onto the lustrous sealskins, the images on the beige skins mirroring those on the black.
The next step was to cut the traced images out of the sealskins, after which the lighter pictures could be inserted into the “holes” cut out of the black skins. These beige patterns were then carefully and skillfully hand-sewn into the dark skins, mostly by Alan’s wife, Grace, and her mother, Bernadette. Assisting in the project were a few young people, including Alan’s son Jonathan, and a volunteer, KristaIlgok. To create flesh-tones on the human figures, especially for the faces, hide taken from the reverse side of the sealskins was used. To create clear lines of definition around each image, the seal fur was clipped with a pair of scissors, or “given a haircut,” said Jean, with a chuckle.
