31 December 2010

The Stolen Church

Donald British Columbia - "Thou shall not steal", a commandment.
 
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law", another way of looking at things.
 
"Thou shall not steal." Sage advice preached in churches throughout the world. But what if the church itself is stolen? How then to pass along the good word?
 
In the East Kootenay, in the year 1900, that is exactly what happened. An entire church disappeared. It turned up again a short while later mind you, no worse for the wear.
 
The tale begins in the town of Donald, B.C., nowadays a small dot on the map between Golden and Revelstoke. During the 1880s, however, it was an important divisional headquarters of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Sadly, for the community of Donald, what the CPR giveth the CPR taketh away when the railway decided to move operations to the town of Revelstoke, 70 miles to the west. For the citizens of Donald there was no choice but to close up shop and move on. Still, no sense leaving all those buildings to rot in the wilderness. One by one, almost every structure of value in the town came down and traveled by rail to Revelstoke. Among the last building earmarked for removal was the charming little St. Peter's Anglican Church, built in 1889 through the efforts of Henry "Father Pat" Irwin, a much-loved pioneer missionary. When asked for guidance the supreme authority of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster passed a ruling promising the church to the town of Revelstoke.
 
Enter Rufus A. Kimpton, who, at the time, ran the trading post and lived with his wife Celina and two children in the rapidly evaporating town of Donald. Forced to pull up stakes, they decided to re-settle in the village of Windermere, 100 miles to the south. For Mrs. Kimpton the greatest regret was the separation from her beloved house of worship. Ever the dutiful husband Rufus concocted a plan.
 
Enlisting the aid of a group of willing men, including railway workers and a riverboat crew, they rapidly and secretly took apart the entire church, packed it up, altar, organ, pews, and all, and sent it to Windermere via Golden. The plan worked perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. A certain element of the Golden population got wind of the endeavour and just as secretly took possession of the 600-pound church bell as it lay on the town dock waiting for loading onto a barge for the final stretch of the journey.
 
Lacking any real moral or legal leg to stand upon, Rufus Kimpton took the loss in stride. "That bell was too heavy for our church anyway," he stated, adding, "I don't know but the Golden people were sorry they took that church bell when they discovered its effect on their church building."
 
Sam Cobb, a local Windermere carpenter worked from photographs and quickly reconstructed the entire church on a plot of land donated by R.L.T. Galbraith. The funding of the entire venture came by way of donations, the majority of them anonymous.
 
Thus, St. Peter's Anglican Church ended up in Windermere with the bell hanging in St. Paul's Church in Golden, a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, or something along that line.
 
The only remaining question at the time was whether the purloined church was still a consecrated temple of worship. The local congregation continued to attend regularly, content in their faith, but it was not until 1908 that Bishop Dart re-consecrated the church, perhaps the only church stolen once and blessed twice.
 
It still stands today on its second original spot, a testament to, well, a testament to a whole lot of things actually, from romance and religion to robbery and redemption. Regular church services are held there during the summer months when the little community swells with vacationers and is a popular year-round site for weddings.
 
Rufus Kimpton died in 1934, his wife Celina in 1942. Both rest in a large family plot in the Windermere cemetery, a short distance from their beloved church.
 
In Sept.1960, the church bell at Golden was removed temporarily to allow repairs to the belfry. Hearing that it was laying on the ground next to the church a group of Windermere residents paid a late night visit. The following Sunday it tolled from the tower of the St. Peter's Anglican Church in Windermere for the first time in sixty years.
 
Jim Cameron.