Hamlet needs money to fix historic church
Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services
Pelly Bay (Feb 26/01) - The Roman Catholic Church in Kugaaruk needs rebuilding.
Fairly serious repairs were made to the historic site in 1993, which cost over $150,000, but more work is needed.
"The walls are starting to crack along the seams. It's so bad that some of the rocks are even starting to crack," said hamlet senior administrator Quinn Taggart. "One wall is extremely bad. The rest of it is pretty minor." he said.
The hamlet has hired a Yellowknife architect, who did the repairs in '93, to assess the damage and give a financial estimate. Once they have the estimate, Taggart said the hamlet plans to approach the Departments of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth and Sustainable Development for money to fix the old stone church.
The church was first declared a historic site under the Government of the Northwest Territories, and remained as such when the Government of Nunavut came into power.
Taggart added they also want the architect to determine how much it would cost to rebuild some of the now destroyed buildings that used to surround the place of worship.
"We want to revitalize the whole site and rebuild the original buildings," said Taggart. "We want to make it into a full-scale visitor's site."
If the second phase of the project is approved, the hamlet will pay the architect $26,000 for the reports and estimates. A total of $14,500 has already been approved for the preliminary work on the church.
