Paul Idlout served Anglicans and beyond
In the 1970s Canada’s $2 bill bore a striking scene of Paul Idlout, an Inuk teen, alongside his father and four other men preparing for a seal hunt on Baffin Island.
The image captured a traditional way of life that was vanishing amid rapid social change. It came 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, Idlout survived enormous hardships and eventually became the first Inuk bishop of any Christian denomination in the world.
Paul Ullatitaq Idlout was born in 1935 in Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet) on the top of Baffin Island.
He grew up before the transition of Inuit life to fixed settlements. 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 Christianity as a child. His paternal grandfather had been a successful hunter and Anglican lay minister while his father acted as a guide for missionaries.
In 1955 their community was relocated by the federal government to Qausuittuq (Resolute Bay) in the high Arctic. Another group was relocated from northern Quebec.
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 instead endured terrible hardships. The Inuit high Arctic relocations are now considered a dark chapter in Canadian history.
In 2013 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. Those of us who were relocated, it could not be helped, we were not from the same community – the Quebec people and us – we did not speak the same dialect and our lifestyles were different. 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 Idlout met his future wife Abigail Allooloo. She had gone to school and coached her husband in English while he took high school correspondence courses.
At first Idlout served as an RCMP special constable and translator. Then in 1986 he enrolled in an Anglican theological college on Baffin Island. He was ordained in 1990 and ministered to several communities across the island.
In 1996 the Anglican Diocese of the Arctic elected the 62-year-old priest as an assisting bishop, the first Inuk bishop in any church in the world.
Idlout’s consecration service 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. The Inuit were ready then," Bishop Idlout said. "We can be involved with the servicing of a huge territory by Inuit people. [The ceremony] was a great thing. It was the first time the people had seen themselves [in a place of authority] in their own land."
Idlout served in the eastern Arctic as bishop for eight years.
"Bishop Paul was a real servant, a gentle and kind man with a good sense of humour," says former Arctic bishop Joey Royal. "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 Idlout continued to hunt and teach traditional skills. He also provided pastoral care. He died in Iqaluit on New Year’s Eve at the age of 90.
Governor-General Mary Simon, herself an Inuk, sent a letter which was read at his funeral. She praised Idlout as "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."
In the past 30 years, Iqaluit’s igloo-shaped cathedral has witnessed the consecration of five more Inuit bishops. But Paul Idlout was the first.