GUN-CARRYING CLERIC

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1929, Page 13

GUN-CARRYING CLERIC

“BISHOP OF THE NORTH POLE.”

Recently there arrived in England a Bishop who is compelled to carry a gun in order to protect himself from the bears that inhabit his diocese. He is Dr. Isaac 0. Stringer, of the Yukon, in North-west Canada, a territory covering something like two hundred thousand square miles, and he is what an American would term a real “Hebishop.” The Bishop is 62 years old, and in addition to his gun he carries ■his own luggage. With a small amount of assistance, one of the first things he did on his arrival at a flat in Kensington, London, was to carry an enormous trunk, weighing at least a hundredweight, up two flights of stairs to his bedroom. The gun -saved the Bishop’s life on one occasion, when lie met a huge grizzly bear in a remote corner of his diocese. He came upon the grizzly unawares, and it ran at him, but the Bis'hop fired quickly and the animal fell dead. Referring to the incident, the Bis'hop declared it would be ridiculous for him to make a fuss about a thing like that when so many of his parishioners had passed through similar experiences.

Another thing the Bishop did, which made him famous for a time, in spite of his own modesty, was to eat his own boots. That was when he was journeying over the Rockies and food supplies gave out. He and his companions remembered that they were wearing whaleskin boots, which they proceeded to cut up, boil and eat to save themselves from starvation. Esquimaux and Indians form a considerable portion of Bishop Stringer’s' parishioners, but largely through his efforts they are now rather more than semicivilised. He stated during his recent visit to London that practically all Esquimaux over 12 years of age in his diocese are able to read and write, while many of them speak English. So civilised are they that quite a number of them possess motor and gasolene launches, gramophones, sewing machines, hot water bottles, and thermos flasks, while they regularly listen-in to programmes from London, Berlin and Tokio, using their own wireless sets... The Bishop’s -wife, who has lived in the Yukon for 32 years,-accompanies him on many of his long journeyings, and when the pair were visiting the Arctic regions in Victoria and Banks Islands, last year, she created quite a sensation among the natives as she was the first white woman they had seen. Dr. Stringer is commonly known as the “Bishop of the North Po!e,” and he was one of the representative Canadian clergy-present in London to participate in the enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury.