Bishop Paul Idlout, centre, is seen in 2017 teaching the Inuktitut Book of Common Prayer to Inuit theological students (including future bishop Ann Martha Keenainak, standing) in Saint Simon’s Anglican Church in Apex, just outside of Iqaluit.Joey Royal/Supplied
In the 1970s, Canada’s $2 bill bore a striking picture of Paul Idlout, an Inuk teen, alongside his father and four other men preparing for a hunt.
The scene, near Aulatsiivik in northern Baffin Island, captured a traditional way of life that was vanishing amid rapid social change, much of which was imposed by government policies. The image was from the remarkable 1952 National Film Board documentary Land of the Long Day, which showcased the Idlout family.
In the years after that hunting expedition, Mr. Idlout survived enormous hardships and eventually became the first Inuk bishop of any Christian denomination in the world. Bishop Idlout died in Iqaluit on New Year’s Eve at the age of 90.
Paul Ullatitaq Idlout was born to Joseph Idlout and Rebecca Qillaq on April 21, 1935, in Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet) on the top of Baffin Island.
He was the first of their nine children and grew up before the transition of Inuit life to fixed settlements. Instead, the Idlouts lived a nomadic existence, in tents in the summer and igloos during the winter while hunting for seals and caribou. For his first 18 years, he lived on the land with his family and never saw the inside of a school.
He had early exposure to Anglicanism as a child. His paternal grandfather had been a successful hunter and Anglican lay minister. His father was a well-respected Inuit hunter and leader, as well as a skilled photographer. The NFB documentarian, Douglas Wilkinson, gave him a Kodak Duaflex camera. The Nunavut Archives has about 300 images credited to Joseph Idlout.
In 1955, Joseph, his wife, Rebecca, and three of their children — Paul, Moses and Leah — were relocated along with other members of their community by the federal government from their home in Mittimatalik to Qausuittuq (Resolute Bay) in the High Arctic. Paul would have been about 20. Another group was relocated from northern Quebec.
A teenaged Paul Idlout (crouching at centre) with his father and four other traditional Inuit hunters, were famously featured on the Canadian two-dollar bill in the 1970s, in a print made from a 1951 photograph taken on Baffin Island.Bank of Canada Museum/Supplied
It is thought that the government ordered these relocations to establish Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic during the Cold War. The Inuit were promised plentiful wildlife and improved living conditions, but soon discovered they had been misled, and endured terrible hardships. The effects have lingered for generations. The Inuit High Arctic relocations are often referred to as a dark chapter in Canadian history.
In 2013, Bishop Idlout recalled that traumatic time: “there were no houses and it was fall and very cold. We lived in a tent and the tent was very cold. We did not go to a warm place for a long time.
“Those of us who were relocated, it could not be helped, we were not from the same community — the Quebec people and us — and there was an obstruction as we did not speak the same dialect and our lifestyles were different and we had to get used to each other.
“These were hardships we faced, not having nurses and trying to get accustomed to something we weren’t used to.”
The family eventually returned to their original community.
There Paul met his future wife, Abigail Alooloo, with whom he would have five children – two daughters and three sons. Abigail had gone to school in the south and coached her husband in English and writing while he took high school correspondence courses.
Mr. Idlout served as an RCMP Special Constable and translator for several years. He left the RCMP in 1977 and joined Petro-Canada, where he worked for five years, after which he worked as a kayak builder. However, he had begun drinking heavily and decided to change his life.
In 1986, he enrolled at the Arthur Turner Training School, an Anglican theological college then located in Pangnirtung. (It is now based in Iqaluit.)
He was ordained in 1990 and served as a priest in several communities across Baffin Island.
In 1996 the Diocese of the Arctic elected the 62-year-old priest, then living in Cape Dorset (Kinngait), as their suffragan or assisting bishop. Bishop Idlout was the first Inuk bishop in any church in the world, and at that time, only the third Indigenous bishop to serve in the Anglican Church of Canada, after Charles Arthurson and Gordon Beardy.
The election itself was a lengthy one that required 29 ballots. To be elected, a candidate had to win a majority in the orders of both clergy and laity. The 31 members of the clergy voted consistently for Rev. Idlout while the 43 lay members voted for Rev. Benjamin Arreak, from Kuujjuaq, Que. Both Inuit men were originally from Pond Inlet.
Bishop Paul Idlout in 2002Sue Careless/Supplied
By the evening of the second voting day, Rev. Idlout was elected and Rev. Arreak went on to distinguish himself on the Inuit team translating the Bible into modern Inuktitut. (Rev. Arreak also eventually became a suffragan bishop in 2002.)
Bishop Idlout was consecrated at St. Jude’s Cathedral in Iqaluit on June 2, 1996. The service, according to the Book of Common Prayer, was fully bilingual — in Inuktitut and English – with some Gwitchin and Cree also spoken.
“I felt this should have happened three or four years ago, when at that time I felt that the Inuit were ready then,” Bishop Idlout said, referring to the consecration of an Inuk bishop. “We can be involved with the servicing of a huge territory by Inuit people.”
“[The ceremony] was a great thing,” he continued. “It was wonderful. It was really nice with all the people there. I think that it was the first time the people had seen themselves [in a place of authority] in their own land.”
His diocesan bishop, Bishop Chris Willliams, remembers his suffragan as “a very loving person and perhaps one of the few remaining Inuit to grow up on the land. I found him to be a tremendous support to me and a wonderful colleague.”
Since it made more sense for Bishop Idlout to live in Iqaluit, Bishop Williams returned to his home and the diocesan offices in Yellowknife. The vast diocese of the Arctic — the largest Anglican diocese in the world — has its offices in Yellowknife on Great Slave Lake and its cathedral thousands of kilometres northeast on Baffin Island.
Bishop Idlout served as suffragan bishop for eight years, from 1996 until 2004.
“Bishop Paul was a real servant, a gentle and kind man with a good sense of humour,” said Joey Royal, himself once a suffragan bishop in the Arctic and former director of the Arthur Turner Training School in Iqaluit. “Paul and his wife, Abigail, were wise elders and mentors to the Inuit theological students in Iqaluit. Although he was accomplished in so many ways, he wore it all with winsome humility and joy.”
In retirement, he remained active as a hunter and teacher of traditional skills for many years. He helped out at the cathedral but also provided pastoral care and Sunday services to the people of nearby Apex on Baffin Isand.
On Epiphany, Bishop Idlout’s funeral service was held at the place of his consecration, St. Jude’s Cathedral in Iqaluit.
Just before the service began, Suffragan Bishop Ann Martha Keenainak read a statement from Governor-General Mary Simon, who expressed her condolences and regret that she could not be there in person.
Ms. Simon, herself an Inuk, called Bishop Idlout “a remarkable spirit” and a “prominent elder who championed peace, reconciliation and love.
“Despite a youth marked by hardship — the relocation of his family to Resolute in the 1950s — he chose collaboration over anger, love over isolation,” she wrote.
“As the first Inuk bishop in the world, he strengthened reconciliation and created lasting bonds between the Anglican Church and the Arctic.”
In his sermon, Diocesan Bishop Alexander Pryor said Bishop Idlout “paved the way” for many Inuit faith leaders, and that he was committed to his family and culture. “He was a humble, honest and faithful man who stayed close to God and produced much good fruit.”
In the past 30 years Iqaluit’s igloo-shaped cathedral has witnessed the consecration of five more Inuit bishops: diocesan Andrew Atagotaaluk; and suffragans Annie Ittoshat, Lucy Nester, Bishop Arreak and Bishop Keenainak. But Paul Idlout was the first.
With a file from Jeff Pelletier of Nunatsiaq News.
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