Isaac O Stringer (1866 – 1934)
Isaac Stringer was born in Kingarf, Bruce County, near Kincardine, Ontario to parents Ellen (Graham) and John Stringer. Isaac was the fourth of eight children. He was encourage by a teacher and passed the high school entrance exam, a rare occurrence in those days.1)
Author Walter Hamilton relates a story about the “O” in Stringer’s name. Apparently when he was in high school at Kincardine, a friend named Hugh Clark, who later became the parliamentary secretary under Sir Robert Bordon, borrowed lunch money and wrote out a note that said “I O Stringer one dollar.” The school boys started calling Stringer “I.O.” and he adopted the letter.2) Author Frank Peake thinks this story is ‘almost certainly’ apocryphal and Issac added the “O” to distinguish himself from the many Stringers that lived in the Kincardine area.3) In any case, it is true that the “O” does not stand for a name.
Stringer attended University College and Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto and graduated with a BA in 1892, and a diploma from Wycliffe College in 1892.4) In 1891, he met Egerton Ryerson Young, a veteran Methodist missionary, whose bookBy Canoe and Dog Team(1890) had created wide interest. In 1882, Isaac got to know the Venerable William Day Reeve who addressed a Wycliffe College Missionary Society meeting and spoke of the needs and possibilities in working in the Mackenzie River valley. Isaac’s friend, Tom Marsh, was going to volunteer and Issaac decided to do so as well.5)
He did not get much local encouragement. Bishop Bompas told him the Inuvialuit were brute beasts and Stringer would first have to make them into human beings. He travelled down the Mackenzie River from Edmonton and traders and missionaries along the way told him the Inuvialuit were degraded and dishonest, and murder and infanticide were common. He visited Kittigazuit [Kitigaaryuit] and, although ordered away, he managed to stay for two weeks before returning inland.6) Kitigaaryuit is at the mouth of the East Channel of the Mackenzie River and was the gathering place of the Kitigaaryungmiut Inuvialuit who gathered there to hunt beluga whales.7)
In March 1893, Rev. Stringer travelled by dog team to Rampart House where he met Rev. Wallis and his wife. In the middle of April, he travelled on to Herschel Island with his Inuvialuit guide Ooblonk. He arrived in May and found the whalers Balaena, Grampus, Newport and Narwhal frozen into Pauline Cove. Captain Horace P. Smith welcomed him and invited him to stay aboard the Narwhal. Stringer arrived back at is headquarters at Fort McPherson in July 1893.8)
Stringer returned to Herschel Island five times between November 1893 and spring 1895.9) In 1895, he began to establish a permanent mission on the island and received donations from thirty-one captains and officers.10)
The Inuvialuit at Herschel were largely Nunatarmiut speaking a different language than the people living in the Mackenzie Delta.11) Stringer slowly learned Inuvialuktun, hindered by the lack of a written alphabet. He translated some common prayers and many texts of scriptures as well as twenty hymns.12)
Stringer left Herschel in September 1895 and took his furlough in Ontario where he married his fiancée Sadie. In May 1896, he and Sadie and Sadie’s uncle William Dobbs Young started back north. Dobbs was a carpenter and unpaid Christian layman, and Sadie was expecting the Stringer’s first child. Rowena was born at Fort McPherson in December. The whalers and the Inuvialuit both supported a permanent mission on Herschel so in August 1897, so the Stringers returned to Herschel to spend the next four years establishing the mission.13) In anticipation, Stringer had studied some dentistry and medicine while he was on furlough and Sadie was a nurse. The Stringers’ second child was born on the island in May 1900.14)
In 1903, Stringer was advised not to return to the arctic due to an eye condition resulting from snow blindness so the family moved to Whitehorse in the fall, and their third child was born there. In 1905, Stringer became the Second Bishop of Selkirk and, after a trip to Toronto, he and Sadie went to England to apply for more money. In 1907, the Stringers moved to Dawson.15) His first charge to the Synod in 1907 called for the recognition of legal status for First Nation people, compensation of their land, legal protection for their right to hunt and fish, reservation of selected lands as a headquarters, and greater support for housing and medical supplies.16)
In 1909, the Mackenzie Diocese was added to Reverend Stringer’s responsibilities when Bishop Reeve retired. Stringer visited Herschel Island that year and then he, Charles Johnson, and Enoch started for Fort McPherson. Stringer and Johnson ran out of food and became lost. It took them three weeks to reach the Peel River and they traversed the mountains instead of crossing them. They finally reached William Vittrekwa's camp on the Peel, twenty miles below the trading post. During the last few days, they were eating boiled sealskin boots.17)
In 1913/14, the Stringers spend several months in England fundraising. During the First World War Stringer applied to be a chaplain but was refused. 18) He tried to persuade young men to volunteer for service during the war. He travelled to England in the fall of 1918 to the spring of 1920 to assist soldiers.19)
In 1919, Stringer was back in Ontario and feeling poorly. In 1920, Stringer established St. Paul’s Hostel in Dawson and it opened on September 21st. In 1924, the Stringers made a tour of the Diocese and Sadie was the first white woman to undertake such a trip.20) She accompanied him on as many trips as she could, trying to slow down the guides who travelled too fast for her husband’s bad heart and poor vision. In 1927, she went on a thousand-mile trip they took from the Mackenzie Delta to Cambridge Bay.21)
In 1931, Stringer was named the diocesan bishop of Rupert’s Land and the metropolitan of the province and relocated to Winnipeg.22) The last few years of Stringer's life were difficult ones. He was plagued by re-occurring illness and worried about the church's financial losses due to embezzlement by a trusted law firm.23) He died suddenly on the steps of his church and is buried there at St. John’s Cathedral in Winnipeg.24)
Bishop Stringer Park is located in Whitehorse between the Old Log Church Museum and Christ Church Cathedral.