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Beloved priest remembered
Canon Jack Turner died in 1947 accident at mission he established near Arctic Bay

Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Monday, May 25, 2015

IKPIARJUK/ARCTIC BAY
He brought the Anglican faith to the High Arctic, and this month, elders who knew Canon Jack Turner shared stories at the site of the home where he suffered a fatal gunshot wound almost 70 years ago.

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Faith Turner, former head nurse in Pond Inlet, travelled from B.C. to Moffet Inlet, south of Arctic Bay, to honour the father she never knew, Canon Jack Turner. He died after a 1947 accident at the family home at the Moffet Inlet Anglican Mission weeks before she was born. - photo courtesy of Bishop Darren McCartney

"The community up here wanted to put up some sort of memorial," said former mayor Frank May, whose wife Leah, the local deacon, led a memorial service at Moffet Inlet, 120 km south of the hamlet.

Attendees, including 95-year-old Qappik Attagutsiak and other elders, travelled by sled and qamutik from Arctic Bay May 16.

The elders were part of a group of about 20, including Turner's youngest daughter Faith, who erected a memorial stone at the site of the former family home.

"They shared story after story after story," said Suffragan Bishop Darren McCartney, who attended the ceremony with Bishop Andrew Ataguttaaluk.

"Jack was quite capable of looking after himself. From what I hear, he was an extremely good hunter, good at travelling. He was very competent living in the North."

Turner came to the region while following in the footsteps of his brother Arthur, who set up the mission at Pangnirtung in 1928.

Jack Turner considered the North, not his native England, his home. The memorial stone notes that he travelled 24,300 miles (about 40,000 km) by dog sled during his 18 years in the High Arctic. He and Rev.

Harold Duncan founded the Anglican mission in Pond Inlet in 1929, and in 1944, Turner's wife Joan arrived.

They stayed in Pond Inlet for a year and had their first daughter, June. From there, they moved to Moffet Inlet to establish a mission.

"He put a house up and worked on translation," McCartney said, noting the house was at the intersection of two trails to Iglulik and Pond Inlet from Arctic Bay. Turner translated many of the hymns still used today, he said.

The stone was placed on the site of the house, which was lost in a fire some time ago.

Until now, a brass plate on a nearby mountain has memorialized Turner's achievements.

The Turners produced a second daughter, Grace, and adopted an Inuk girl, Rebecca.

Joan was pregnant with Faith when the fatal accident occurred in September 1947.

"He was coming back from hunting a seal," McCartney said.

"A young girl by the name of Elizabeth was struggling to carry water, and he lifted the bucket from her, went up three steps, and something happened that the rifle went off and shot him in the lip, and lodged into his brain.

Before they could extract him out, he was conscious for quite a long time. CBC at the time reported on it every night on the progress to get him out."

A plane to take him out didn't leave for weeks.

"It was the first medevac that was ever done out of the Arctic," May said.

A rescue team arrived within a week of the accident, but Turner could not be moved until December.

"They flew him to Winnipeg, but he didn't survive. He lived a couple of days and passed away."

Community members needed about an hour to erect the memorial stone, after which elders who remembered Turner shared their stories.

"We spent a good hour with the ladies telling their stories that they could remember from his time there," May said.

"Then we did a short prayer service and a couple of hymns that were Canon Turner's favourites. Then we did some games and a nice meal."

Residents hope the stone will be a lasting reminder of a committed missionary who played an important role in the area's history.

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