Aboriginal and Eurocanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era
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Solitudes in Shared Spaces: Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era Cheryl Gaver, B.A., M.A., M.Div. Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Ph.D. degree in Religious Studies Department of Classics and Religious Studies Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa E Cheryl Gaver, Ottawa, Canada, 2011 ii UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA SOLITUDES IN SHARED SPACES: ABORIGINAL AND EUROCANADIAN ANGLICANS IN THE YUKON AND NORTHWEST TERRITORIES IN THE POST-RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL ERA by Cheryl Gaver, B.A., M.A., M.Div. ABSTRACT This thesis examines the current relationship between Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon as they seek to move beyond past hurts into a more positive future. After three field trips to Canada’s North, visiting seven communities and interviewing seventy-nine individuals, complemented by archival research, I realized the dominant narrative based on a colonialism process linking residential schools, Christian Churches and federal government in a concerted effort to deliberately destroy Aboriginal peoples, cultures, and nations was not adequate to explain what happened in the North or the relationship that exists today. Two other narratives finally emerged from my research. The dominant narrative on its own represents a simplistic, one-dimensional caricature of Northern history and relationships. The second narrative reveals a more complex and nuanced history of relationships in Canada’s North with missionaries and residential school officials sometimes operating out of their ethnocentric and colonialistic worldview to assimilate Aboriginal peoples to the dominant society and sometimes acting to preserve Aboriginal ways, including Aboriginal languages and cultures,and sometimes protesting and challenging colonialist policies geared to destroying Aboriginal self-sufficiency and seizing Aboriginal lands. The third narrative is more subtle but also reflects the most devastating process. It builds on what has already been acknowledged by so many: loss of culture. Instead of seeing culture as only tangible components and traditional ways of living, however, the third iii narrative focuses on a more deep-seated understanding of culture as the process informing how one organizes and understands the world in which one lives. Even when physical and sexual abuse did not occur, and even when traditional skills were affirmed, the cultural collisions that occurred in Anglican residential schools in Canada’s North shattered children’s understanding of reality itself. While the Anglican Church is moving beyond colonialism in many ways -- affirming Aboriginal values and empowering Aboriginal people within the Anglican community, it nevertheless has yet to deal with the cultural divide that continues to be found in their congregations and continues to affect their relationship in Northern communities where Aboriginal and EuroCanadian people worship together yet remain separate. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................i INTRODUCTION........................................................... 1 1. LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS............................................. 3 Overview ........................................................... 3 The Research Project: Its Evolution and Implementation.................. 4 Methodology........................................................ 8 Cross-Disciplinary Research........................................ 8 Ethnographic & Ethno-History Research............................. 10 Oral vs Written Sources............................................ 12 Surveys and Sampling Credibility.................................... 13 Other Research.................................................. 14 Assumptions........................................................ 14 2. PRACTICAL DETAILS: THE BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE NARRATIVE 19 Overview ........................................................... 19 TheCaveatsoftheFiveW’s........................................... 19 General......................................................... 19 Where.......................................................... 19 When .......................................................... 21 Who .......................................................... 21 What .......................................................... 23 Why .......................................................... 24 Working Definitions.................................................. 25 Summary ........................................................... 27 3. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION AND EMERGENCE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH........................................................... 28 The English Reformation and Growth of Anglicanism..................... 28 The English Reformation.......................................... 28 Seventeenth-Century England...................................... 29 The First Anglican Missionary Societies.............................. 31 Eighteenth-Century Tensions Within Anglicanism......................... 32 Different Understandings of Anglicanism............................. 32 High Church Anglicanism.......................................... 32 Low Church Anglicanism.......................................... 34 Broad church Anglicanism......................................... 35 The “Great Awakening”........................................... 35 The Church Missionary Society (CMS) and its origins..................... 36 The “Clapham Sect”.............................................. 36 The Church Missionary Society (CMS)............................... 37 Conclusion......................................................... 38 E2010 Cheryl Gaver v TABLE OF CONTENTS 4. BACKGROUND HISTORY: CONTACT IN WESTERN CANADA............... 40 Overview ........................................................... 40 Agents of colonialism in western Canada: the fur trading companies......... 40 The Rev. John West and the beginnings of residential schools in western Canada 44 Henry Venn & the vision, policies, and practices of the CMS in its dealings with Aboriginal peoples............................................ 46 Summary ........................................................... 49 5. THE ANTICIPATED PLOT: THE COLONIALISM NARRATIVE............... 51 Overview ........................................................... 51 Canadian Colonialism................................................ 51 General......................................................... 51 Displacement.................................................... 53 Isolation / Containment............................................ 54 Forced Assimilation............................................... 55 Political / Economic / Social Domination............................. 56 Racist Ideology................................................... 58 Colonialism in Canada’s North......................................... 59 General......................................................... 59 Displacement, Isolation and Containment............................ 59 Forced Assimilation............................................... 61 Political / Economic / Social Domination............................. 63 Racist Ideology................................................... 67 Summary ........................................................... 70 6. THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP AMONG ABORIGINAL AND EUROPEAN / EUROCANADIAN ANGLICANS IN CANADA’S NORTH...... 72 Overview ........................................................... 72 The Early Anglican Missionaries in Canada’s North....................... 73 The Rt. Rev. William West Kirkby (1859-1868)........................ 73 The Rev. Robert McDonald (1862-1904)............................. 77 William Carpenter Bompas (1865-1901).............................. 83 Other Anglican Missionary / Religious Presence.......................... 93 Summary ........................................................... 95 7. THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP AMONG ABORIGINAL AND EUROPEAN / EUROCANADIAN ANGLICANS IN THE NT................ 97 Overview ........................................................... 97 Anglican Missionaries of the Diocese of Mackenzie River.................. 97 General......................................................... 97 The Rt. Rev William Day Reeve (1891-1907).......................... 97 The Rt. Rev. James Richard Lucas (1913-1926) and the Rt. Rev. William Archibald Geddes (1929---1933)..................................... 98 E2010 Cheryl Gaver vi TABLE OF CONTENTS The Rev. Charles Edward Whittaker (1895-1917)...................... 100 Anglican Missionaries of the Diocese of the Arctic........................ 101 General......................................................... 101 The Rt. Rev. Archibald Lang Fleming (1933-1949)..................... 101 The Rt. Rev. Donald Ben Marsh (1950-1973)......................... 103 The Rt. Rev. John Reginald Sperry (1974-1990)....................... 107 Anglicanism vs Roman Catholicism Among Northern Peoples.............. 113 Conclusion......................................................... 114 8. THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP AMONG ABORIGINAL AND EUROPEAN / EUROCANADIAN ANGLICANS IN THE YT............... 116 Overview........................................................... 116 Anglican Missionaries of the Diocese of Yukon........................... 116 General........................................................