Thomas Henry Canham (1857 - 1947)
	
Thomas Canham studied at the Church Missionary Society College in England and was ordained priest in 1880.((“Thomas Henry Canham fonds” The Anglican Church of Canada, General Synod Archives fond description. 2018 web site: https://www.anglican.ca/archives/holdings/fonds/thomas-henry-canham-fonds/)) He was one in a class of seventeen trained for mission work overseas, but he was retained in London for a time as the Church Missionary Society (CMS) was short of funds. His future wife’s brother, Reverend Canon French, was ordained at the same time and spent almost all of his ministerial life in Canada.((Marjorie Almstrom. “The Venerable Thomas Henry Canham.” Prepared for Ven. and Mrs. K. Snider as background for the 100th anniversary of the mission at Selkirk, 26 July 1992. Old Log Church Museum files.))  
	
In 1880, the Extension and Enlargement Fund was created to celebrate the Church Missionary Society anniversary and four people donated 1000 pounds each for work among the Inuvialuit of the Mackenzie River. Rev. T.H. Canham and Rev V. Sim were sent to Canada with money from this fund.((Walter Vanast, “The Mackenzie District: Significant historical dates concerning Catholic and Anglican endeavours, explorers, etc.” Draft 2, 1999. McGill Intellectual Property. //Academia// website.)) Canham left England for Canada in 1881, and spent the winter of 1881/82 at Portage La Prairie, Manitoba on his way north.((Marjorie Almstrom. “The Venerable Thomas Henry Canham.” Prepared for Ven. and Mrs. K. Snider as background for the 100th anniversary of the mission at Selkirk, 26 July 1992. Old Log Church Museum files.)) 

Reverends Sim and Canham arrived at Fort McPherson [Peel River Post] in November 1882. Canham stayed there for language study, and worked with the Peel and Porcupine River people when Archdeacon McDonald took an extended furlough to Winnipeg.((Marjorie E. Almstrom,// A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 20, 32, footnote 4.)) Canham was only able to make two short visits to the Mackenzie delta and efforts to have an Inuvialuit boy come to stay at Fort McPherson was unsuccessful. Canham found it confusing to try and learn Gwich’in and Inuktitut at the same time. In 1884, Bishop Bompas gave Canham permission to marry Sarah French. In 1885, Canham was able to spend some time at Rampart House, Alaska with Reverend Sim before he died. Their friendship dated from the time when they both attended the Church Missionary College in England. By this time, Canham was very fluent in the Gwich’in language.((Marjorie Almstrom, “The Venerable Thomas Henry Canham.” Prepared for Ven. and Mrs. K. Snider as background for the 100th anniversary of the mission at Selkirk, 26 July 1992. Old Log Church Museum files.))  
	
Rev. Canham left Rampart House at the end of May 1886 and started down the Yukon River to travel 800 miles before meeting anyone. At Tanana Station [Noukelakayet], they were met with an enthusiastic group of First Nation men, women, and children who crowded a room when Canham agreed to hold prayers and teach. He sent some of them to his travelling companion Herbert who could instruct them as well and, even better, knew and understood a few words of their language. Herbert stayed in the camp when Canham left with letters and orders for supplies from the company agent at St. Michael.((Letter from Reverend Canham to Bishop Bompas from Peel River, 13, January 1887. National Archies of Canada microfilm reels. Old Log Church Museum research files.))
	
At Anvik, Canham met Mr. [Parker] who hoped to have Reverend Kirkby join him in his work. Canham had told him that that might happen in 1887. Parker had his wife, three children, and a lady to help but was much discouraged and expected to be recalled in 1888. The Anvik mission school was purely educational as the community was Christian Orthodox. Canham baptised people on his way back up the river and picked up Herbert along the way. Both thought their short visit was worthwhile and they arrived back at Fort Yukon on August 2nd. Canham thought with so much to be done on the lower river that his time at Fort McPherson was wasted. When he and his guides arrived back at the home base, Archdeacon McDonald held a service for the Dene and did not invite Canham or his guides who left shortly after for Rampart House.((Letter from Reverend Canham to Bishop Bompas from Peel River, 13, January 1887. National Archies of Canada microfilm reels. Old Log Church Museum research files.))
	
Reverend Canham wrote to Bishop Bompas about his circumstances in 1886. He and Archdeacon McDonald were getting along until Canham wrote McDonald a short note from Resolution and did not mention Reverend Sim’s death. After that McDonald did not share the work at Fort McPherson, only grudgingly allowing him to take the English service on the second Sunday of the month. Since Canham’s service to the Inuvialuit was limited, he felt he was taking money from the Church Missionary Society for not doing very much. McDonald baptised an Inuvialuit lad who had run away to Fort McPherson and he did it at a Dene service without telling Canham.((Letter from Reverend Canham to Bishop Bompas from Peel River, 13, January 1887. National Archies of Canada microfilm reels. Old Log Church Museum research files.)) Thomas Canham and Sarah French were married in 1886 and they shared his work in the north.((“Thomas Henry Canham fonds” The Anglican Church of Canada, General Synod Archives fond description. 2018 web site: https://www.anglican.ca/archives/holdings/fonds/thomas-henry-canham-fonds/)) 
	
In December 1886, Canham travelled to Lapierre House but returned at once finding no First Nation people in residence and no provisions in the store.((Letter from Reverend Canham to Bishop Bompas from Peel River, 13, January 1887. National Archies of Canada microfilm reels.)) In 1887, the Canhams moved down to St. James Mission and were there from 1888 to 1892.((“Thomas Henry Canham fonds” The Anglican Church of Canada, General Synod Archives fond description. 2018 web site: https://www.anglican.ca/archives/holdings/fonds/thomas-henry-canham-fonds/)) The St. James Mission was at Noukelakayet, near the mouth of the Tanana River. This was a five-year term with the Episcopal Church in Alaska.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 30, 33.)) Bishop Bompas informed the Church Missionary Society that this would sustain earlier mission work at Noukelakayet until the American Episcopal Church could take over.((Marjorie Almstrom, “The Venerable Thomas Henry Canham.” Prepared for Ven. and Mrs. K. Snider as background for the 100th anniversary of the mission at Selkirk, 26 July 1992. Old Log Church Museum files.))  
	
In 1892, the Canhams boarded the Alaska Commercial Company’s boat Arctic at Fort Yukon, bound for Fort Selkirk. Thomas and Sarah had volunteered to open a new mission there where the people had only had brief visits from McDonald in 1887, Ellington in 1888, and perhaps some itinerant lay ministers.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 30, 32-33.)) 
	
The Canhams arrived at Fort Selkirk in the summer where Arthur Harper was established with his trading post open. Reverend Canham found it a hard mission as he only spoke Tukudh [Gwich’in] and did not have a translator. McDonald’s translated bible and hymnal were not useful. The Canhams taught the day school for children in English and had the children teach them a basic vocabulary in Northern Tutchone.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 33-34.)) In 1892, David Walker’s father, a trader at Noukelakayet, brought David to stay with Canham at Fort Selkirk, so David could continue in mission school.((Thomas Stone, //Miner's Justice: Migration, Law and order on the Alaska-Yukon Frontier, 1873-1902.// American University Studies Series XI, Vol. 34, New York: Peter Lang, 1988: 81.)) 

Canham was appointed the Archdeacon of the Yukon in 1892. In 1894, Canham reported that the Selkirk mission buildings were almost completed, and he had a daily attendance of about thirty school children. His mission was interrupted by an emergency transfer to Rampart House that lasted until 1896.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 33-34, footnote #8.)) 
	
When Rev. Wallis and his wife departed the Rampart Mission in Alaska after less than a year, Reverend Totty filled in at the mission until the Canhams, who were suffering from ill health, could arrive. Susan Mellet was sent with them to help with the foster children and serve as a teacher and helper for Mrs. Canham. They travelled up the Porcupine River in in the summer of 1894, and had to make two trips to transport all of their goods in a small boat from Fort Yukon. Sarah Canham, Susan Mellett, and four foster children went first. It was a seventeen-day trip and one of the boatmen drowned on the way. Canham arrived nearly a month later with the supplies. It was a hard winter, and many of the First Nation trappers were no longer trading at the post, but found Fort Yukon or Herschel Island more agreeable. Canham tried to get them back by buying their furs and then handing them over to the Alaska Commercial Co. but by 1896, few trappers were living in their old camps on the Porcupine. The missionaries left Rampart in early June 1896.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 40-44.))
 	
In 1896, the Canhams took their first furlough in twelve years. They sailed to San Francisco and then travelled to Victoria, Vancouver and east by train with synod meetings enroute. Mrs. Canham’s health was very poor with rheumatism, dental problems and perhaps kidney problems. She was uncomplaining, had an operation while in England, but remained in poor health.((Marjorie Almstrom, “The Venerable Thomas Henry Canham.” Prepared for Ven. and Mrs. K. Snider as background for the 100th anniversary of the mission at Selkirk, 26 July 1992. Old Log Church Museum files.))  
Canham produced a small book with bible lessons, hymns, and prayers which was printed in 1897, as well as a Tutchone vocabulary published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1898.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 33-34, footnote #8.)) 
	
The Canhams returned to Canada in 1898 and reached Forty Mile in late July. They went directly to Fort Selkirk, where they found the mission house being used by the Yukon Field Force, and soon re-established the First Nation church and school. Canham was concerned about his wife’s health in 1899. In 1902, he refused a raise in pay from the Church Missionary Society. In 1909, the Canhams took a short furlough to England and in 1910 they moved to Carcross where Archdeacon Canham was in charge of St. Saviour’s Church and became the principal at the residential school. In 1911, Canham accepted Jacob Njootli from Fort McPherson, aged twenty, as a pupil for the ministry. In 1913, Mrs. Canham was suffering from acute sciatica. In December 1914, Canham described a 1200-mile journey he made to all of the Church Missionary Society mission stations in the region. He found the First Nations enthusiastic, especially at Moosehide. Mrs. Canham’s health and memory were now very poor and he wondered if he might resign. In 1916, Bompas granted the Canhams a furlough and they decide to move to Toronto.((Marjorie Almstrom, “The Venerable Thomas Henry Canham.” Prepared for Ven. and Mrs. K. Snider as background for the 100th anniversary of the mission at Selkirk, 26 July 1992. Old Log Church Museum files.))  
	
The Old Log Church Museum in Whitehorse has a copy of Thomas Henry Canham, //Vocabulary English-Wood Indian// (paperback), 1 January 1898. Ottawa Department of Indian Affairs Library. It was re-printed by HardPress Ltd. in December 2013.