Arctic Hope

“Aklavik is located on the Peel channel of the Mackenzie River Delta 113 km south of the Arctic Coast. There is no summer road access, however, in winter, an ice road stretches across the Mackenzie Delta to Inuvik.”(excerpt from the Gwich’ in web site)

In 1914, Aklavik began to grow into a permanent community when the Hudson Bay Company established a trading post at a traditional trading location between the Gwich’in and Inuvialuit. Both the Anglican and Catholic churches had established missions there by 1926. Over time Aklavik grew into the regional government center for the Northwest Territories.

Based on Aklavik’s location within the Mackenzie river delta, engineers predicted the community would be eventually destroyed by flooding (hello New Orleans). As a result the community of Inuvik was built as a replacement governmental center in the late 50’s. Many of the residents of Aklavik remained in the community and rebuilt after the ‘big flood’ as recently as 2006. Today the population stands around 600.

Aklavik has a shortish 3000 ft runway. Why do I care? I was a bit heavy when I landed and later took off. It is a bit ‘interesting’ to clear the runway into the middle of the river. I didn’t use all of the runway, but most of it.

As is common in the region, Aklavik has declining Catholic and Anglican Churches for reasons outlined in the previous blog. However, Aklavik has a growing Bible Baptist congregation that has seen significant numerical and spiritual growth over the last couple of years.

Please pray that God will raise up disciples and workers for the harvest in Aklavik. Please pray for Pastor Larry and his family as they seek to lead others grow to an intimate relationship with Christ.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 18:17 and is filed under Summer of Exploration, Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.