When early settlers came to the Outer Gulf Islands they passed the rocky upthrust of Saturna in favour of the more pastoral slopes of Pender and South Galiano and the warm central saucer of Mayne. Saturna is the most southerly of the large islands fringing the western rim of the Gulf of Georgia. One of the first to build on Saturna was the explorer Warburton Pike who had a high‑vaulted lodge on a benchland overlooking Plumper Sound where he housed his large collection of trophies and native artifacts.
One day in Victoria Warburton, still a young man, met a sixteen‑year‑old English boy named Gerald Payne who had been sent on a long sea voyage partly to recuperate after illness. His ship had foundered and all his belongings went down with it. While waiting for funds the derelict boy gratefully accepted Pike's offer of a haven on Saturna in exchange for certain care-taking duties. By the time his father's letter arrived from England Gerry Payne was in love with Saturna.
He stayed for several years with Warburton Pike, making some hazardous journeys with him to the Arctic and then preempted almost a thousand acres on Saturna's western coastline and settled in Breezy Bay. His younger twin brothers, Harold and Hubert, also acquired large tracts of land between Lyall Harbour and Winter Cove. Hubert was an Anglican minister with a tremendous zeal for his calling. With a friend, Major Bradley‑Dyne, he moved to a sandy beach in Winter Cove a wooden shack which had been built and abandoned by a Japanese fisherman and converted it into a small church. Besides his labour the Major contributed hand‑carved chancel furniture, a small harmonium and large wooden cross. He also wed the Payne brothers' sister Katie.
The large cross was firmly nailed to the front gable of the little building. There were no roads in Winter Cove and congregations came by boat, beaching their craft on the sandy shoreline. It was said of Parson Payne that he preached with one eye on the Bible and the other on the tide. The church was dedicated to St. Christopher, patron saint of those who travel by water. According to legend St. Christopher had carried a child over a treacherous ford discovering when he reached the farther shore that his passenger was the Christ. The name Christopher means Christ‑carrier.
Warburton Pike's Lodge on Saturna Island was destroyed by fire and he did not rebuild. The bench‑land property passed into the ownership of Major and Mrs. Bradley‑Dyne who had given so much help to "Parson Payne" in establishing little St. Christopher's Church at Winter Cove. For many years The Parson, a tall, broad‑shouldered vigorous man, carried on his ministry with the help of his cumbersome, sputtering motor‑boat called Gazelle. In time he became a Canon and moved to Victoria, greatly respected and much loved. The little church was dismantled and Major Bradley‑Dyne's carved candlesticks, lectern and other furnishings were given to South Pender's Church of the Good Shepherd.
When we first saw the former church in 1960 a line of laundry stretched from a window to a near‑by tree and a TV antenna spindled from the rear gable. The carved cross was still firmly in place on the front gable. Saturna had no church. Bishop Michael Coleman ministered to Saturna Island from Pender and Sunday services were held in the Community Hall. Among those who provided transportation for the Bishop were Jim and Lorraine Campbell, now owners of the historic benchland.
Another was a new‑comer named Norman Wilson, who for seven years had been living with his wife Betty on a sturdy little boat he had built himself. They had bought the point of land at the entrance to Boot Cove and were planning to build a house there and establish a machine shop. One day as they chugged across the Sound Norman confided to the Bishop that he had studied civil engineering because it was a family tradition. His father and uncle were both well‑known civil engineers. If he had had a choice, he said, he would have been an architect. He would like to build tall buildings. "I have always thought it must be a man's greatest achievement to build a church!"
Bishop Coleman never missed an opportunity. "Why don't you build one for Saturna?" . . . "Me? I couldn't build a church I don't know how!" "You can build a boat, can't you?" . . . "Well, yes . . . " "Design a bigger boat. We'll build it upside‑down and make it a church! "
Norman Wilson was a very shy man, also pugnacious. He was meticulous that rules must be obeyed. "To me a Church is more than a building," he told Bishop Coleman. "It is a symbol founded in traditions that go back to the earliest days of Christianity. I don't know those traditions." "I can get you books," said the Bishop. "I have my eye on a sn1all central piece of property we can buy for a nominal figure. If you can draw up a set of plans that will pass the Church Building Committee they might release funds from the Mission Fund to buy the lot and the first materials needed.
The books were studied. The small triangle of land prowled, foot by foot. It was at the juncture of two main island roads, heavily treed, rough and rocky, sloping in two directions. One slope was gentle, from east to west, the other a sharp tumble from north to south. When Wilson told his wife Betty of the Bishop's fantastic proposal she sighed. "I can see I am stuck with my galley. I thought I was going to have a real kitchen at last." Her husband said, "I haven't said I will build it!” . , "You will," she replied. "Come Wind and High Water, you'll build it."
The first plans were drafted, checked by the Bishop, redrawn. They passed the Anglican Church Building Committee. Mission Funds were advanced. Wilson began to cut down trees. With the purchase of "The Bishop's Triangle" plans for building the Church became known and some long‑time residents were deeply hurt. As developers of the Island they felt they should have been consulted about anything as communal as a church. They were also proud of their fine Community Hall which they felt was being slighted. Furthermore they had, until now, been recognised as the foremost builders on the island, and who was Wilson? He had not even built himself a house! They said they would have nothing to do with the project and most of their friends followed their example.
This opposition, which Bishop Coleman had not expected did not surprise the stubborn Wilson. It only hardened his determination. If he had to build the Church alone, he would build it alone, but build it he would!
There was more than one man ready to help build St. Christopher's Church. Art Ralph, aged 70, had been a member of Parson Payne's congregation. As a young man, his health wrecked by the trench warfare of World War 1, he had been given by his doctors six months to live. He left his wealthy home in England to see as much of the world as he could, found Saturna and stayed, year after year, serving the island in every way he could, from post‑master to school trustee.
Chuck Bavis and his wife from secretarial England in the 1940's, lived at Narvaez Bay with their four children. Chuck also had a small bulldozer, the only piece of heavy equipment available on Saturna. It took two hours to crawl over the rough trail from Narvaez Bay to the church site. Davey Jack, professional fisherman, harvested the wild Pacific Ocean off western Vancouver Island in his small "Saturna Rose", built on his home‑made ways in Boot Cove. Hilda and James Yates had a background of Lancashire cotton mills and English music halls.
Ned Leek was an ingenious machinist and welder employed as maintenance man (round‑the‑clock) at the Light Aggregate Plant at Winter Cove. Dr. Jim Carney, retired veterinarian, was another First War veteran, ex‑Seaforth, who had lived for twenty years in Shanghai, China. Tom Davidson and his wife and children were carving a pioneer farm on one of Saturna's rugged mountains. And there were others, including Jim Wilson of Mayne Island, friend but no relation of Norman. Younger couples had to earn their living. Nearly all were building or finishing their own homes. The Leeks were converting an initial shed and piece of scruffy beachland into the beautiful estate now owned by Polly and Graham Howarth.
Norman Wilson gave almost his full time to the church, only taking time off to repair a motor now and then if there was a bill to pay. Having lived for seven years on his boat his muscles were not conditioned to the strenuous labor of land‑clearing and made screaming protest. He thought if he ignored the pain they would harden up but this did not happen. His right arm and shoulder ached continuously.
In the first centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, ‑ called by followers Christ, "the annointed one" ' ‑ the Roman rulers made it a criminal offence to be a Christian. Yet the new teaching spread in secret until even Roman Emperors began to adopt Christian tenets of social responsibility. At last it was safe for Christians to come out of hiding and build churches where they could meet and pray together.
Certain simple traditions marked these little halls which still persisted many centuries later when European generations were designing their great Cathedrals. Pagan gods had always lived nearby in mountains, rivers or lakes. The first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles states that when the Christ left the earth he was lifted up and left his disciples gazing heavenwards. This upward attitude was stressed by the early Christians wherever possible. Churches, and Cathedrals later, were built on hills not so much to make them visible as because, approaching them uphill, worshippers must lift their eyes towards Heaven. Steeples were like fingers pointing, arches created vaulted ceilings.
Buildings were sited east to west, with the altar against the east wall so that worshippers, turning to the altar, faced the Rising Sun, symbolic of the Risen Lord.
The long east‑to‑west slope of the triangular church lot on Saturna allowed this old tradition to be carried on. The building was sited by the high eastern boundary and the approach planned from the low point where the two roads met. It was hoped to build a lych‑gate there. The lych‑gate was the entrance to the church‑yard in the early days. A small roofed enclosure with benches on each side, it offered church‑goers shelter from unkind weather until the clergyman arrived. Where churches had no bell‑tower, the bell was often housed in the lych‑gate.
A broad path was cleared of stumps and salal bushes from the church towards the low point and surfaced with broken clam shells, as the Indians marked their trails through the woods. The white shells showed up clearly by day or night. Captain Dennis Carter of the B.C. Ferry fleet bought several dozen bulbs and planted them along this path. They came up bravely in the spring but were quickly eaten by cows who in those days were pastured on the roads. The lych‑gate is not yet built.
While many churches told the story of uplift and inspiration which St. Christopher's was trying to embody, no church anywhere was built like Saturna's upside‑down‑boat church. The ribs of a boat suggested arches for a church but a boat's ribs usually spring from a well‑laid keel. You cannot build on a keel suspended in air.
The mathematics of stress and thrust which enabled medieval builders to vault their arches higher and 20th century engineers to span deep canyons with their railway bridges were applied by the designer to Saturna's new church. Boat‑builder Davey Jack helped evolve a simplified method of construction. Saw‑mills around Sidney were combed for long fir 2 x 4s individually selected for straight grain and absence of knots. Among the stumps on the church site these long 2 x 4s were laminated into beams, then suspended by stout ropes between carefully chosen trees. A middle tree was a pivot, the third several feet out‑of‑line with the other two. The rope at this end of the beam was fastened with a "Ferguson Clamp", that is, a strong piece of wood was pushed through the knot that tied the ends together. When this wood was twisted the rope was tightened.
Water was carried in buckets to the church site, heated on brush bonfires and continually soaked into the area of the beam that had to be curved to form the arch. Every day the clamp was twisted and the top of the beam gradually drawn to the exact curve calculated by the designer. Two beam ends were then beveled and joined to make an arch.
Meanwhile the bulldozer pushed stumps from the actual building site and tumbled rocks down hill to form a rampart outside the south wall of the basement. Remaining earth was shoveled by hand into wheel‑barrows and trundled up a sloping plank to be dumped on the rocks. The writer, then a woman of nearly sixty, was a trundler and can testify to the narrowness of the ascending plank and the way it bounced as the heavy barrows were pushed up or, emptied, tried to run away coming down. Every trundle was a hair‑raising experience brightened by the vision of a some‑day Sunday School in the finished basement.
When the basement was finally levelled a fine broad walk extended along the south wall of the church towards an outside entrance to the planned vestry.
When the basement walls were roughed in above the concrete foundations a floor was laid and the exact places for the feet of each arch measured and marked. The tricky business of raising the arches was accomplished by Norman Wilson and his 19‑year‑old son who was serving with the Canadian navy out of Esquimalt.
A tall spruce grew just east of the church. This was scaled and a block and tackle fixed among the top branches, with a long rope passed through. One by one the arches were carried onto the floor, laid prone, each in its appointed place and one end of the long rope attached to the pointed tip. By hauling on the other end of the rope father and son raised the arch and held it upright with temporary supports. When all were standing they looked a very fragile skeleton for a building.
Next lightweight mobile scaffolding was contrived and built, with the help of Ned Leek. Mounted on wheels it was easily moved about on the wooden floor. It was also fitted with a telescopic work‑platform cranked up and down by hand. At its dizziest extension the work‑platform lifted a worker to a position among arch tips. It was considered so precarious that nobody was allowed to mount it except the men who built it. With its help short sturdy beams were fitted between the arches and the skeleton made rigid.
Suddenly one day in late August the reflected sun blazed among the evergreen tops as aluminum sheeting sheathed the church roof protecting it from approaching September rains. Bats of insulation went up under the roofing, to be covered by large sheets of plywood. These had to be painted before they were lifted into place ‑ a coat of sizing and two or more coats of paint. The tedious task was undertaken by "the galley slave", Betty, Norman Wilson's wife.
What colour should the ceiling be? "Blue", said the designer firmly. "Blue is the colour chosen by God for the ceiling for His Earth, we cannot have a better colour for His Church."
Always a dominant theme in the design of Christian churches has been the cross. Many have been built "cruciform" with wings or transepts proportioned roughly to the arms of a cross, the head towards the east. In ancient King Cormac's Chapel, at Cashel in Ireland, built in 1127, the chancel is not central with the nave but inclines to the left, symbolising the droop of Christ's head towards the side where His mother stood. At St. Christopher's on Saturna the Cross is incorporated into the building itself by two of similar size, one in the west wall over the entrance, the other in the east wall, over the altar.
Although echoing each other, the crosses are also opposites. In the west a massive wooden cross is encased in a glass wall. In the east, the glass window is set in a wooden wall. At first it was suggested that this window be in stained glass but no one on the island was adept in this form of art. Then Bishop Coleman heard of a shipment of ruby cathedral glass which was made in Belgium and bought for a church in Montreal. Plans were changed and the glass was not needed. It was re‑shipped to the Gulf Islands and arrived safe and sound.
The timber which forms the large cross in the west wall also has a history. It was cut on Mayne Island in the 1890s, before the forests were logged commercially. It was prime No. I fir, the best to be found and used for the wharf at Point Comfort Hotel in Georgina Bay near the eastern entrance to Active Pass. Originally owned by Warburton Pike the hotel was the focal point of shipping between Porlier Pass, north of Galiano and East Point on Saturna's southern tip. In all those miles of inhospitable coast line there was no other haven from the sudden squalls and bad storms that plague the Gulf of Georgia.
When the hotel and wharf were dismantled in 1958 Wilson bought some of the prize timbers to use in his own house but gave them to the church. He had towed them behind his own boat from Point Comfort through Active Pass and down Navy Channel on a day when both wind and tide made it a rough passage. Now some form the Cross hung on iron bars in the glass west wall and others top the rail around the porch in front of the entrance.
Many years before a large city congregation bought new pews for their church and gifted their old ones to a small Mission on B.C.'s rugged northern west coast. When the Mission, in time, bought their own new pews, the old ones came down to Saturna on Davey Jack's proud little Saturna‑built fishing vessel, Saturna Rose.
The pews were of good classical design and first grade wood but they were scratched and discoloured by years of service. Many wads of rock‑hard chewing gum adhered to the under surfaces of the seats. Old Art Ralph and a friend undertook the arduous task of restoring them. They were taken apart, cut to size, sanded, refinished and re‑assembled. When the church building was ready to house them, they looked like new.
Members of the Women's Auxiliary on North Pender Island worked needlepoint covers for pads for the hard wooden kneelers.
Most of the rock on Saturna is shale or sandstone but on the western benchland a fine seam of granite had been quarried by early Gulf Islanders trained in rock cutting. Barge loads of this granite were used in Victoria's historic buildings, including the main Library on View St. near Douglas. When the quarry closed down one cut block was left behind. It was retrieved by Jim and Lorraine Campbell and given to St. Christopher's as a corner stone in the glass west wall near the entrance.
A small portable harmonium which had come around Cape Horn in a sailing ship had led the singing in Parson Payne's small church at Winter Cove and when no longer needed there cherished by Gerald Payne's daughter Geraldine. She gave it to the Upside down boat church and though since replaced by a larger reed organ it is still there.
At the first wedding held in St. Christopher's, Geraldine became Mrs. Geraldine Dick.
Bishop Michael Coleman was semi‑retired because of a heart ailment but he was a popular speaker and travelled widely as a member of a Speaker's Forum. Whenever he could he spoke of St. Christopher's and his audiences, of many denominations, sent gifts and donations to the unusual but very traditional small church on the rocky island. Contributions came from as far away as Texas. Altar furnishings were a gift from the Diocese o Massachusetts. After a convention meeting addressed by Bishop Coleman, eastern steel‑workers took up a special collection to have a bell cast to ring beside the far‑away Pacific. Unfortunately a visitor, wishing to hear the bell's lovely tone, yanked at the rope that dangled from it when it was only temporarily hung. The bell fell from its peg, hit a rock and was cracked. Another bell replaced it but lacked the sweet sound of the steel‑workers's special casting.
A retired mill mechanic from Lancashire turned woodcarver and crafted the lectern and panels for the pulpit. A lady in Minnesota carved small shields depicting early church symbols often used by Christians in the years when the new religion was outlawed by Roman Emperors. Simple outlines of a fish or the wavey lines of water were doodled by walking staves in the dust of the road unnoticed by non‑Christians, but quickly identified by the followers of Jesus Christ.
On June 17th, 1962, St. Christopher's was dedicated (but not consecrated) by the Anglican Archbishop of B.C. as a building where all Christians could worship together.
Throughout the building of the church designer and builder Norman Wilson was plagued by pain in his shoulder and arm. At last he sought medical help and learned the pain was not muscular as he thought, but caused by cancer, which soon claimed his life. In his memory his parents donated a Baptismal Font and Memorial Shield.
When Norman died the church still stood among rocks and stumps. Since then many hands have cleared the rough "Bishop's Triangle" to gracious grounds where the wild deer can do no harm and birds chant unmolested their Te Deums of praise and thanksgiving.
Parson Payne's small church at Winter Cove has been restored and is in private hands.