PRIEST TO VISIT ANTARCTIC

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29395, 23 December 1960, Page 12

PRIEST TO VISIT ANTARCTIC

Rev. J. Evans, Of Merivale An Anglican priest who has spent several years of his life at sea will travel to the Antarctic by an oil tanker at the end of this month. He is the Rev. J Evans, the senior assistant priest at St. Mary’s Church, Merivale. Mr Evans will be the first Anglican priest to visit the Antarctic. The Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. A. K. Warren) hoped to go but a recent injury prevented him, and he has appointed Mr Evans in his stead. “The main job is to visit McMurdo Sound and Scott Base and minister to the needs of the men there,” Mr Evans said yesterday “I will work with the United States chaplain who is stationed there.”

Mr Evans is a man of varied interests. Between 1919 and 1928 he was a ship’s wireless operator He is now a radio “ham.” At 50 years of age. Mr Evans, then a priest in Ashburton, decided to learn to fly and obtained his pilot’s licence in 1950. Soon afterwards he abandoned flying for gliding and was a foundation member of the Canterbury Gliding Club, of which he is still a member. He built his own glider. He has been a priest in the diocese of Christchurch for 30 years. Mr Evans hopes to conduct a service aboard the Alatna, the tanker which will take him there and back. Other services will be held in the chapel a+ McMurdo Sound.

He will spend three days at McMurdo Sound and Scott Base before he returns to Lyttelton.