"Father's House" is 80 years old
Welcome to Tuktoyaktuk-the northernmost community on Canada's mainland.
Where I live, everywhere you look there is the ocean, since we are on a small peninsula. As you look out over the Beaufort Sea, there are no islands between us and the North Pole. The next stop is Santa Claus! Permafrost is as close as the depth of a shovel blade, if its summer, that is!
Recently, we have had a few newcomers to Tuk. For the first time this summer, a vulture was spotted at Paulatuk and also at our Tuk garbage dump. And a few weeks ago an elder who was tending his nets noticed two eyes and two ears swimming toward hima polar bear (only the second seen in eight years). Needless to say, Gordon jumped on his quad and moved pretty fast. Also, if you are lucky, you might see yellow canaries now. Ill let you know when we get palm trees!
Tuktoyaktuk is a community of about 1,000 people, of whom 98 per cent are the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic. Our temperature in the summer is between 7 and 18 degrees Celsius and in winter, between -30 and -45 Celsius. If you dress properly you are fine, just watch for the bitter wind coming off the frozen ocean!
Like any community, Tuk is a mixture of darkness and lightnot only 24-hour winter darkness and 24-hour summer sunbut we have bootleggers, drug dealers, and gambling as well as 80 per cent unemployment, and all the evils these things spawn.
At the same time, we have people speaking up, demanding consequences to wrong behaviour. We have people recycling clothing and goods; we have emergency dry food through the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
But this is just Building #1, our church, which for the past year is unusable and will remain so until we obtain more funding. Building #2 is what the people call Fathers House since it was originally the priests house as well as the first church built in 1939. This building is being upgraded to be used as a thrift store and for emergency food. This is its new function, since we no longer have a priest here and since a newer building was built for a Sister!
The structure is solid but the logs under it have to be replaced because of rot-not surprising for an eighty-year-old! The building is being repaired well, asbestos insulation is being removed and replaced according to code; the wiring is being redone to today's standards; new thermal windows are being installed and the walls of warped beaver board are being changed to plywood.
Though there is a certain amount of local help, the expertise is provided from others. Daryl, our contractor for the construction work, says he is supported by prayer and guardian angels as he crawls on his belly, digs a trench under the building, uses jacks and blocking to saw out the rotted logs. His clothes are muddy at the end of the day, washed first in the ocean, and then at Sisters House.
It is our hope that we will be finished with Fathers House by summer of 2012, and Our Lady of Grace church, at least the structure, by fall of 2013. In the meantime, we need blessings, both spiritual and temporalprayer and funding! The Angels have really done their job in keeping everyone safe, but they are hopeless at doing the physical labour!
So this is our Tuktoyaktuk mission where I have been for the past six years, upon retiring from teaching at Newman College. In between the construction months, we work on building faith and serving the needy.
Sister Fay Trombley, S.C.I.C. is pastoral leader of Our Lady of Grace Mission, in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, in the Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith.
Catholic Missions In Canada Magazine, Winter 2011
