'Little piece of heaven on earth.'

Archibald Fleming had already spent several years ministering to the Inuit of South Baffin by 1914, when he and his supporters cobbled together whatever construction materials they could gather to build the region's first Christian house of worship.

St. Paul's church in Kimmirut – across the channel from where the Hudson Bay Company post had recently been established – "was only a rough little building made from the material sent out for two small storehouses," Fleming later recalled in his memoirs.

"But it seemed to me, and I believe to the Eskimo also, a little piece of heaven on earth."

The original building was replaced in 1948, with a new church only slightly less modest, which still stands today near the centre of this community of 400.

This year the worshipping community of St. Paul's celebrates 100 years of ministry in Kimmirut. It was the second Anglican mission to be established on Baffin Island.

"We're happy we are still carrying on the tradition of spreading God's word and praising him," Naomi Akavak says.

Plans to mark the event are "in the works," she says. "We're not just going to let this one go by."

Details still have to be finalized at vestry, but she confidently predicts a day of celebration and traditional games.

Akavak, who serves as secretary-treasurer for St. Paul's parish, grew up in an outpost camp in the Markham Bay area up the coast. She moved to Kimmirut 39 years ago, where she married her husband, Jawlie Akavak, a year later – in St. Paul's church.

"Today's my anniversary," she says during a telephone interview.

Naomi's nephew, Tommy Akavak, was baptized and married in the tiny church, like just about everyone in the South Baffin hamlet.

He recalls the wedding ceremony well but adds, "I don't remember getting baptized."

"It was always fun going to church when we were kids, though," he says.

"And it's still fun today."

It was the summer of 1909, when Archibald Fleming, J.W. Bilby, and James Peck, arrived on the Newfoundland schooner, Lorna Doone, to establish a mission at what the British colonials knew as Lake Harbour.

There were already two other southerners there, running a small mica mine, where they employed some of the Inuit ­during the summer months.

"I shall never forget our first welcome to Baffin Island" and Kimmirut, Fleming recalled in his memoirs, Archibald The ­Arctic. The landing at Lake Harbour was his first mission posting and his first meeting with the Baffin Inuit he came to know and love.

"The people thronged around us exclaiming, ‘How wonderful.' ‘How loving.' ‘It is good.' ‘The teachers have come.' ‘We are happy'."

The Inuit already knew something about the Anglican Church they were welcoming as Peck had established Baffin Island's first mission 15 years earlier – in 1894 – at Blacklead Island near what is now Pangnirtung.

After serving at Kimmirut for several years, including many dogsled expeditions with Inuit guides out to the outpost camps, Fleming went on to become the first bishop of the newly formed Diocese of the Arctic.

But he always cherished the name his Inuit companions at Kimmirut gave him – "In-nook-ta-kaub" – meaning "one of the family."

"The companionship was mutual," Fleming wrote, "for I enjoyed visiting them and appreciated the smiles with which I was welcomed."

Rev. Mike Gardener, who is now retired in Iqaluit, echoes Fleming's description of nearly 50 years earlier. Gardener arrived as minister at Kimmirut in 1955, his first posting after coming over from England.

"We were very welcomed," he says. He recalls the vivid image of a field dotted with tents, each with a different coloured door, set up when the people gathered in Kimmirut for the summer to meet the supply boat.

In those days, the church building was only used in the summer, and at Christmas.

The rest of the time, most of the population lived in outpost camps, hunting, trapping and fishing, so worship services for the few people who stayed in the community year round were held in the mission house.

Christmas was a different story, Gardener says. People would come in from all the camps with their dog teams, and there was much excitement as family and friends gathered after months of separation.

"We would fire up the old coal stove for the church services," Gardener says. "There was a nativity play and carol service on Christmas eve, and communion on Christmas day." There were services every day during the Christmas period.

After church on Christmas day, the benches were moved back to make room for the bean stew feast. Everyone brought their own utensils and enamel dishes, and "there would be great vats of beans and whatever people had donated."

Then came traditional games and dog sled races on the ice, and presents of soap, toothbrushes and the like, packaged and sent up from the south by Anglican Church Women's groups.

Gardener served in Kimmirut until 1960, taking in the mission's 50th anniversary in 1959. In his second year there he married his wife, Margaret.

One hundred years later, the Anglican "family" continues unbroken in Kimmirut, today under the Inuit leadership of lay reader Joannie Ikkidluak, and a faithful community that includes the likes of Naomi Akavak and Tommy Akavak.