.
Divine intervention?
Rankin landmark may be saved by last-minute offer

Maria Canton
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Jul 12/00) - It was a sign from above.

Just when people from the Pulaarvik Kablu Friendship Centre in Rankin Inlet had resigned themselves to the fact that the original Church of the Holy Comforter Anglican Mission would have to come down, a last-minute proposal to buy it surfaced.

Kevin Sanguin, manager of the centre and the person overseeing the church project, confirmed late Friday afternoon that an offer to buy the church came only days after a crew went to the church to start the dismantling process.

"We were happy to comply and stop working on it. We want to save the church as much as the rest of the community does."

A landmark on Rankin Inlet's main street since the late 1950s, the church was purchased by the Friendship Centre in 1993.

As a condition of that sale, the building would have to be moved.

The plan was to move and renovate the building for use as an assembly hall, but those plans never materialized.

In recent years, the heat to move the building has been turned up by the hamlet's core re-development plan -- the church's lot is needed for a roadway.

David Ningeongan is the community lands administrator for the hamlet and says the church is blocking access to commercial space they want to start leasing out.

"We need more commercial space in the core area -- from the hotel right down to the fish plant," said Ningeongan.

"The road will be between the old church and the old Friendship Centre office."

The hamlet hopes to get the new downtown road built this summer, meaning the church has to be moved.

Susan Sammurtoq is the daughter of the late Rev. Armand Tagoona, who built the church almost half a century ago.

"My dad was very excited when he was building that church. I was only 10 years old, but I remember how excited he was," said Sammurtoq from her home in Iqaluit.

"He was a perfectionist and there were many days that he worked on building it all by himself -- it had to be just right."

Surprised and saddened by the news that the church would be dismantled rather than moved, she immediately requested the cross on the front of the building for her mother.

"I called the friendship centre right away and asked for the cross that my dad and his dad had put together and put on the outside of the church. I want to give it to my mother," she said.

"I really don't want to see it come down, I watched it go up and there are so many memories -- a lot of happy times."

It may not exactly be a divine intervention, but Sammurtoq's wish just might come true.