STRINGER OF CANADA

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 December 1934, Page 10

STRINGER OF CANADA

e LIFETIME IN THE ARCTIC 0 VANCOUVER, November 7. Canada mourns her most revered prelate of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Stringer, who spent forty years in the Arctic, and who was known as “the Bishop who ate his boots.” The appellation come to him when, ' in ministering to a see twice as large - in area as New Zealand, he and a - companion were overtaken by a bliz- • zax’il. After more than a week on the i trail, they realised that they were • lost. Fifteen days later found them ’ with two riffle cartridges left, and their last square of chocolate gone. ’ Lack of food and forced marches had : weakened them considerably. The foli lowing day their only meal consisted ■ of toasted raw-hide sealskin boot-tops. An entry in the Bishop's diary declared them “palatable.” They had the ’ same fare next day. On the third day the diary records: “Boot soles and tops toasted. The last we had. Hand sore. Bound up Johnson’s finger.” On the fourth day they saw a house a mile distant. The Bishop, a man of powerful physique, had lost fifty pounds in weight. His name was Isaac Stringer. Among many tales about him is one as to how a second initial, “O,” was acquired by him. It is said that a gambling Klondyke miner borrowed money from him. Desiring to remember the debt, he wrote on the wall of his cabin, “I. O. Stringer.” Born in Ontario in the year before Canada was confederated, Stringer was sent, on graduation, at his own request, to Herschel Island, where he ministered to the Eskimos for a year. He was then transferred to the Yukon. The nearest doctor was a thousand miles distant. When the Klondyke rush camo, he was at White Horse, where he remained for thirty years, sharing with the police the task of setting up law and order on a new frontier which attracted the most lawless spirits from the United States. In 1930 he attended the Lambeth Conference, and was honoured by his Majesty with a lengthy audience, which convinced him, he said later, that he had no greater interest in his I Arctic flock than the King had. Two I years ago he succeeded the Primate

of Canada, the late Archbishop Matheson, as Archbishop of Rupert’s Land, with headquarters at Winnipeg. Shortly afterwards the whole of Canada was shocked by revelations of a shortage of a million dollars in. the diocesan fund, for which the bursar was sent to prison, where he died. Archbishop Stringer had at the time of his death, raised 800,000 dollars towards restoring the fund.