Traveling is not something you take on lightly – or quickly – in the North. It’s never a “simple” ride down a highway like in the South. Although Rankin or Chesterfield Inlet are only a short plane trip away from Baker Lake, it still comes out to be a day’s journey. In Baker Lake there are roads, of course, but none of them lead far out of town, and many communities have a road affectionately called “the road to nowhere”. I find myself on exactly that road on a dark January morning.

A Church extends much further than the four walls of the buidling or even the borders of a community. It travels with its members wherever they go.

For the regular traveler, this road ends at a gatehouse a couple of kilometers out of town. But this is no leisurely drive. I’m driving up to the mine to lead a memorial service for a Baker Laker who worked for the mine and passed away only a short time prior. This is a death that clouded the town’s Christmas celebrations and is still weighing heavy on everyone. Since arriving in Baker Lake, I have traveled by car, skidoo, Honda ATV, and plenty by foot, but this was my first time being chauffeured to a memorial service so far from town that even the road doesn’t know where we are going!

After hours and hours of driving out of town across the frozen ground and barren landscape, a few buildings come into sight- Amaruq Mine. The miners and all support workers around them work on a two-weeks-on-two-weeksoff schedule, so they have everything they need at their mine camp. Working closely together for two weeks at a time creates something like a family, and so it is only natural that we come here to memorialize the deceased with his other family, his colleagues. I am happy to have received the invitation to go up to the mining camp to hold this memorial service. Among the workers who had just finished their shifts, we share stories, break bread and sing familiar hymns. Northern ministry took me to many diverse places, but this experience reminds me once again about the importance of bringing our ministry to the people where they are. In much of the church, it seems like clergy have slowly slipped into hiding away in their church buildings, safely sat behind a desk, waiting for someone to come to them for “ministry”. In the Arctic we’ve held on to that true meaning of “parish ministry”: claiming the whole community as a missionfield. Sometimes, this means that they need to experience God’s presence in an AA or Celebrate Recovery meeting, counseling, house blessings, or at a memorial service at the mine. What an honour – to be a messenger of Christ, even at the place where the road to nowhere ends!

The Rev. Aaron Solberg has served at St. Aidan’s, Baker Lake since the winter of 2021