Kuujjuarapik in Nunavik, Quebec, is giving his local church, a symbol of the colonial project, a new life after turning it into an interpretation center to display local artifacts.
As a child growing up in what the settlers called the Great Whale River, Rhoda Kokiapik remembers taking a school trip to the town’s old Anglican church, a corrugated iron structure that was filled with treasure. She remembers looking up and seeing a qajaq, the Inuktitut word for kayak, taped to the ceiling. Anglican church services were no longer held there, a newer church had been built, but the kayak and other artifacts remained in the structure, objects that told stories about the community’s past ways of life.
“It was packed and you could feel it was alive. It wasn’t just a place with things. He was rich, ”he recalls. “People used this qajaq to hunt. The mysterious part is, was my grandfather or my friend’s grandfather the owner? “
In order to impart the same sense of wonder and history to the next generation, the Kuujjuarapik municipal government, now recognized by its traditional Inuktitut name, is working to restore the church and create an interpretation center to display local artifacts. To do so, it has obtained funding from other levels of government and partnered with Avataq Cultural Institute, a non-profit organization that works to preserve Inuit culture in the Nunavik region of Quebec. The interpretive center would serve some 400 Inuit people along with 300 non-Inuit people living in Kuujjuarapik, as well as 1,000 other people living in the neighboring Cree community, Whapmagoostui.
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It is an unexpected afterlife for a symbol of the missionary and colonial project, and a reminder of the complex relationship that many indigenous peoples have with that past.
The “iron church,” as it was known locally, was a pre-cast corrugated iron structure shipped from Britain and originally built in 1879 at Qilalugarsiuvik (then known as Little Whale River), according to Susan Lofthouse, an Avataq archaeologist. That was the publication of the Rev. Edmund Peck, known as the “Apostle of the Inuit”, who taught the Inuktitut syllables to the local people so that they could read the translated Anglican texts. In 1895, the building was moved by sled and raft about 100 km southwest along the Hudson Bay shoreline to Kuujjuarapik, at the mouth of the Great Whale River.
The church was installed near the local Hudson’s Bay Company trading post, which first opened in 1813, operated intermittently until 1878, and remained open until the mid-20th century. The post facilitated the company’s beluga whaling and became a regular stop for families traveling in doggy teams to exchange skins and other goods. The site of its main buildings is now covered in greenery and sand from the riverside, Lofthouse says. But a recent serendipitous discovery could open the door to discovering more of its history.
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This summer, when strong winds blew at a construction site that was being excavated for a parking lot, workers discovered a whaling harpoon head. The object reached the hands of Mayor Anthony Ittoshat, who kept it for safekeeping and cordoned off the area so Avataq archaeologists could pay for what Lofthouse described as an “emergency visit” to the site. It will remain intact, Ittoshat says, until crews can return, probably next year, for a more complete excavation. (Due to pandemic delays, this is when the church project is likely to move forward as well.)
Lofthouse believes that if teams dig further, or look closer to the river where other buildings were located, they will find older evidence of the trading post. The harpoon head, as well as other finds such as clay pipe fragments and metal barbs, date to the early to mid-20th century, he notes, adding: “It’s a question of determining time, resources and funding. But we hope to do more research next year. “
At a time when indigenous peoples across the country are acknowledging their colonial past, and when many reconcile Christian beliefs with the knowledge that most residential schools were run by Christian institutions, one would think there would be a temptation to leave. evidence of the existence of the Hudson. Bay Company in the sand. Or dismantle and remove the old church, instead of renovating it.
Mass in the old church, 1902; Mayor Ittoshat calls the restoration project ‘bittersweet’ (AA Chesterfield / Queen’s University Archives / QUA V007-C-1)
“Even the church itself, Christianity, is a colonial introduction,” says Kokiapik, who grew up in the community and now works as Avataq’s executive director in his Inukjuak office. “So everything about this project, the old church and the materials it contains and also the commerce itself, are part of a history that was unfortunately started by the colonial movement.”
But she is very interested in that story. Exploring and questioning it, she says, may be part of the “decolonization” that she and many other Inuit are trying to overcome. He looks forward to joining their archaeologists when they revisit the possible parking lot.
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Mayor Ittoshat says the project has been “bittersweet.” Recognizing the past of the village has forced the members of their community to ask themselves what their roots are, what their religion is. “Knowing today that there are like 100 types of religions, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, where do we fit in as an Inuit people? Just because [the Anglicans] It came to us first, it does not mean that they are right ”, he reflects.
Understanding the ways that Inuit and Belief people in the area were ravaged by disease and co-opted into commerce and Christianity can bring pain, anger and anxiety, Ittoshat says. But remember being inside that old church, when it was in its best condition, and feeling a sense of peace. A sense of calm. “You have the history of all the people who came here to do religious things. Everything comes to you, ”he says. “We wanted to keep that kind of feeling.”
This article appears in print in the November 2021 issue of Maclean’s magazine with the headline “Symbols of a Troubled Past Worth Saving.” Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.
Reference-www.macleans.ca