Anglican minister brings long experience to western Nunavut

Rev, Paul Williams conducts a service Sept. 28 at St. George’s Anglican Church in Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Rev. Paul Williams, the new Anglican minister for Kugluktuk, Cambridge Bay and Uluhaktok, seen here during a recent visit to Cambridge Bay, wants to build up the congregation in Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — There’s nothing more difficult than finding the words to comfort a family that has lost a child to suicide, says Kugluktuk’s new Anglican minister Paul Williams, reflecting on the recent death of an 11-year-old boy in Cape Dorset.

In Rankin Inlet, where Williams served as the minister at the Holy Comforter Anglican Church for 22 years, he once had to perform seven funeral services for those who died by suicide over a five-week period.

And his own extended family has lost two members to suicide, Williams said.

As for what’s to be done, Williams, who arrived this past August at Kugluktuk’s St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, said he would like to see more attention paid to those who are at risk of dying by suicide.

Sports events and new buildings aren’t the only answer, he said.

That’s because these don’t deal with the underlying issues related to suicide, Williams said during his recent visit to Cambridge Bay, where he now also serves as an occasional minister to St. George’s Anglican Church.

Williams first arrived in the North in 1981, encouraged by his cousin, the former bishop of the Arctic, Chris Williams, and the late Bishop Jack Sperry.

Since his first posting in Coral Harbour, Williams has become familiar with the tragedy of suicide.

Williams, who holds a counselling certificate, said three principles always guide him in assisting those in difficulty: respect, forgiveness and love.

While in Cambridge Bay, Williams conducted a service at St. George’s.

And he also helped with the Sept. 30 funeral services for a young woman who died of a chronic illness.

Williams, who speaks Innuinaqtun and English during his services, doesn’t write his bilingual sermons down — although he said he knows “where I want to go and how to get there.”

During his years in Coral Harbour, and then in Taloyoak, Williams learned how to speak Inuktitut, with the help of his late wife, Nowyah, who always spoke Inuktitut to their children.

Now he said he is faced with a new challenge: mastering Inuinnaqtun, which uses the Roman alphabet, instead of Inuktitut syllabics.

“After I spent 30 years learning syllabics, now I have to forget them,” he said.

Although he’ll also be responsible for Cambridge Bay and Ulukhaktok in the Northwest Territories, Williams will live in Kugluktuk, which has been without a resident minister for three years.

Williams, whose wife died of cancer in 2013, still has children and grandchildren living in the Kivalliq region.

In Cambridge Bay, he plans to help the congregation build up their numbers.

The diocese’s long-term plan for Cambridge Bay includes a full-time Anglican minister in the growing Kitikmeot hub, he said.

For now, Williams simply wants to “let people know I’m here.”