A WIDE DIOCESE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 16

A WIDE DIOCESE

Ministering To The

Eskimos

A man whom thousands of Eskimos call “In-nook-tah-kauv”—one of the family of Eskimos —but who is more generally known as the Right Rev. Archibald Lang Fleming, Lord Bishop of the Arctic, was in London recently. With no apparent reason why it should not include the North Pole as well, his diocese extends 2,250.000 square miles of Canadian and Arctic territory. “Tn fact, about a third of the size* of the whole Dominion itself,” he said. “But, all the same, it is not the largest diocese in the world, there is one bigger in South America. “I travelled 15,150 miles round my diocese this summer, mostly by air. We have no roads, no railways, and no golf courses.” Golf is the favourite recreation of this remarkable man, he is a corporation in himself. “There is a certain amount of business to be done and decisions taken, so I have the power to operate in the diocese as a corporation. “I am over here to preach and lecture. for I need funds (about £3000) for the diocese. The money is wanted for hospital and relief work. “The Dominion Government has been very good, and has helped us considerably. But we still need more to build hospitals and to look after the older Eskimos, for when the hunting and trapping season starts the children very often leave their parents behind to die.”

Dr. Fleming claims that he has conducted the “furthest north” marriage ceremony between a white couple. It was aboard a Hudson Bay Company boat, 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The Bishop of the Arctic is particularly proud of his church. “it is a perfect wooden replica of one of the Norman type over here,” he said, “with squat, square tower and Gothic windows. In (he church are two oak panels which Wren used in St. Papul’s, a gift from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s.”