Lunenburg steps up to help Iqaluit cathedral rebuild

The Nova Scotia town of Lunenburg will host a fundraising weekend to help rebuild an Anglican cathedral nearly 2,200 kilometres away in Iqaluit.

Arctic diocese Bishop Andrew Atagotaaluk will conduct services at St. John's Anglican Church in Lunenburgas part of the Dec. 1-2event, which will include a concert, an Inuit art auction, throat singing and a slide show.

Proceeds will help pay for rebuilding St. Jude's Anglican Cathedral, considered by many to be the heart and soul of the Nunavut capital. The igloo-shaped cathedral, which volunteers built in the early 1970s, was destroyed in a fire in November 2005.

"That church in Iqaluit was not just a church where people prayed. I mean, it's where families got together for major events in their lives … births, weddings or funerals," said Nick Newbery, a retired Nunavut teacher now living in Halifax.

"It was a place that gave clothes to people when they needed them, food when they needed it, shelter when they needed it. For the jail people who were in pain, it would help them."

On Nov. 5, 2005, the interior of St. Jude's was destroyed by a deliberately set fire. The building was demolished the following summer, after it was deemed structurally unsound.

Anglican parishioners in Lunenburg are all too aware of what it's like to lose a church: St. John's, a centuries-old wooden building in the centre of town, was destroyed in a fire on Halloween night in 2001.

The church raised $7 million to rebuild, Newbery said. A new St. John's building opened in June 2005.

The St. John's parish has donated money before, but Newbery said he approached them about organizingthis event because he knows there are people in Nova Scotia who used to live in the North.

"There's a little crowd of ex-Nunavummiut living in sort of southwestern Nova Scotia [who] are all going to come. They are going to make it into a reunion," he said.

"We're having a silent auction and they are all going to bring a carving or a print or a something or other, and we can sell these things. And people down there, of course, don't get access to this sort of stuff, so that will be more fun. There will be quite a northern flavour, obviously, to the evening."

The financial help from Nova Scotia won't stop at the weekend event, Newbery said. Anglican women's groups in the province plan to raise money for St. Jude's over the next 12 months, he said.