Abstract:

Between 1909 and 1913, the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta (or Eskimos as they were then known) were all baptized and joined the Anglican Church. Th ese conversions were both sudden and surprising given that evangelization had failed for decades. Why conversion happened and how it changed them—as perceived at the time by ethnologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Anglican cleric Charles E. Whittaker—is what follows here, drawn primarily from diaries, and archival resources.

Author: Walter J. Vanast