Pastor awaits word on fate of burned church

The pews are still standing, but are black with soot. Triangle wedges of plexiglass point downwards from the skylights, melted by the heat of the blaze. Broken glass covers the floor, from lights that shattered.

The charred altar may be beyond repair.

“It smells like a big, burned oven,” said the church’s pastor, Capt. Ron McLean, as he surveyed the cold, charred interior of Iqaluit’s igloo-shaped church, three days after someone broke into St. Jude’s Cathedral and set a fire on or near the altar this past Saturday.

McLean hopes the building will be salvageable — but as of Nunatsiaq News press time on Wednesday, a structural engineer had yet to give the final word on whether the shell of the building withstood the heat from the fire.

Anglican church-goers were shocked to find yellow police tape surrounding the soot-covered entrance to Iqaluit’s historic church when they arrived for service last Sunday morning.

McLean was one of the first people at the fire scene after he got a call from Jimmy Kownirk, who was next door in the parish hall preparing for a five-day youth mission that began Wednesday, when he saw smoke.

By the time McLean called the fire department it was 9:15 p.m. He remained on the scene until about 1 a.m., and was back the next morning at 8 a.m., “photocopying like mad” to replace hymn books that were destroyed in the blaze in time for a 9:45 a.m. Remembrance Day service at the parish hall, followed by the Inuktitut service.

“You don’t quit,” McLean said.

“Out of this, something good is going to come,” he added. “Now it’s just a matter of, ‘what is that?’”

As proof, McLean picks up a desktop calendar with quotes from the bible for each day. On Sunday, Nov. 6, is written: “God’s greatest blessings often come costumed as disasters.”

The pastor’s cheerful smile trembled when he described the state of the church’s prized artworks as “heavily damaged.”

St. Jude’s Cathedral housed several irreplaceable pieces of art, including six huge tapestries contributed by six different Arctic communities, from the Kivalliq to Nunavik.

The cathedral was built by volunteers in 1972, spearheaded by the late Markoosie Peter and the late Harry Kilabuk, using mainly local materials.

The pulpit was a kamotik turned on its end; the communion railing, a kamotik on its side. Three narwhal tusks joined to form the cross, and the pastor’s microphone was held by a kakivak, or fish spear.

Queen Elizabeth II dedicated the building during a 1970 visit, when she also presented the church with a silver bowl to fit in the soapstone font. A photo of her was inside the building when the fire was set, along with the shovel she used at the sod-turning ceremony.

For 33 years, St. Jude’s has been an ecumenical church, welcoming worshippers of many faiths, including Baptist, United Church, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian.

“The church is really a sanctuary or a safe haven,” McLean said. “People come to church because they find peace, they find forgiveness, they forgive one another.”

True to that sentiment, McLean said he is hoping the person or people responsible will come forward, either to the police or to himself.

“Whoever did this is angry at God or at the community,” McLean said. “As hard as it might be for some people to believe, God still loves us.” And he wants them to have a better life.”

It was still too early to say what exactly will happen with St. Jude’s Cathedral, but any renovations will take place with preparation for the next expansion in mind.

Plans already exist to expand the building by adding several new wings to the outside of the igloo — like snowdrifts that pile up over time. That design was unveiled last summer, with an estimated cost of $7 million, but the goal then was to raise the money before beginning construction.

In the mean-time, immediate repairs could be expensive.

Any renovations will require a building permit, which means the cathedral will have to meet new building codes. That means installing washrooms, and bringing water and sewer lines to the building for the first time.

“What we’re going to need here is probably beyond the reach of the North,” McLean said. He expects to be fundraising outside of the territory to cover the unexpected costs.

In that respect, media attention from across the country could be the good news McLean was searching for.

Already, he’s accepted a donation from the Nunavut Investment Group. President Johnny Mike said the organization would provide $10,000 in manpower and equipment to try and repair wood items such as the bishop’s throne and the altar.

Another Iqaluit resident hand-delivered $1,000 on Monday morning.

Iqaluit’s fire department were on the scene within three minutes after several people reported smoke coming from St. Jude’s Cathedral on Saturday night.

Sandra Bourgaize, 12, was one of them. She was in a cab on the way to her grandmother’s house in the area when she saw black smoke coming out of the cathedral’s doorway. Cabbie Ross Bennett pulled up to investigate before calling the Pai-Pa dispatcher, and delivering Sandra to her destination.

Bourgaize and a friend returned to the scene, where they watched as two fire trucks arrived on the scene. “It was scary,” Bourgaize said. Both girls cried.

“It’s devastating,” said her mother, whose own mother went to church every Sunday.

The fire marshal and RCMP are investigating the cause of the fire. Church services and Sunday School will be held at the parish hall indefinitely.

Donations can be made c/o Ron McLean, St. Jude’s Anglican Cathedral, PO Box 57, Iqaluit, Nunavut, X0A 0H0.