The ‘spiritual borderlands’ of the far Canadian north: the ministries of William Carpenter Bompas and Robert McDonald in comparative context

Abstract

Anglican Bishop William Carpenter Bompas and Archdeacon Robert McDonald spent nearly forty years in the far American north ‘spreading the word’ to Indigenous peoples living along the Yukon River in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article investigates their work primarily among the Gwichyà Gwich’in from their arrival in the 1860s to the mid-1870s when the 141st meridian west was established, creating an international border between Alaska and the Yukon, the United States and British America. The border’s creation had enormous implications for the Hudson Bay Company at Fort Yukon (Gwichyaa Zheh) because it was discovered to be west of the international boundary in Alaska and was moved further east into today’s Yukon Territories. The border forced Indigenous people to pick a side, American or British, and tested loyalties to their minister. The ‘spiritual borderland’ thus offers a window into the lives and ministries of two important northern missionaries during the initial contact period, as well as assessing their successes and failures among northern peoples.