In the past 10 years it has built, rebuilt on a larger scale or expanded seven churches. Plans are afoot to rebuild two more. It was the pioneering spirit in the diocese that led to the successful fund-raising campaign, and the new planning around family ministries which has followed in its wake, Bishop Burton said. The church is one of the few places in northern Saskatchewan culture where native and non-natives mix socially and as equals, said Bishop Burton. There is a strange dynamic here of people living together but also apart.
Natives stick to natives as friends, and native and non-native kids travel in separate groups.
I am proud of the church for bringing people together. While church is a place where the two populations often worship together, those parishes where there is no first-hand experience of native problems are finding 135 residential schools lawsuits especially hard to understand, Bishop Burton said. Anglicans in the diocese did not want to face the reality. For a long time, I would talk about the threat to our future, but people didn't think it was possible. They thought someone else would fix it, but now they are getting anxious.