(Part 2)

As we saw last week, a young Henry Irwin had, as his biographer Anne Mercier wrote in 1909, “laughingly declared his intention of choosing a cold climate and being a missionary there; and he...fulfilled this intention by choosing British Columbia as the province, and New Westminster the diocese, where he would begin work.

“What led him to select this special field for his labours, we do not exactly know, though it is said to have been suggested to him by a sermon which he heard....”

Whatever, there followed postings to Kamloops, Rossland and Donald—all of them raw mining and railway camps, and right up ‘Father Pat’s’ alley. He managed to visit home, in 1887 (or 1889) and again in 1894, when he filled in for a month for an absent rector. As Bishop Sillitoe noted, his friends saw “a different man then in many ways from the curate of 10 years before, but in spirit he was the same...kind and cheery”.

Rev. Henry “Father Pat” Irwin. —*www.anglicanhistory.org/canada*

Recalled The Rev. C. J. Whitehead: “He brought with him...a number of photographs, which he showed to the boys in the school and to the masters; and we had long talks till late at night, when he recounted his adventures to us; such as, riding 500 miles on one horse in a week; recovering his horse which had been stolen by Indians; avoiding an Indian murderer in a vast forest.

“His influence over the 'very rough diamonds' he had to deal with was wonderful; he got them to build churches, and (better still) to attend them, and he pulled many a poor fellow who had gone utterly wrong, straight again...

“Yes, truly, a remarkable man was Henry Irwin; not for intellectual gifts so much as for character. He was the friend of every man. To him every human soul was of intense value: he tried to look on men as the angels do, ‘with larger, other eyes than ours’; and in this he is an example of the true Socialism, the only sort that will ever work, the socialism which bids a man give his life for others.”

Heady praise indeed, even if coming from a friend.

But Father Pat was a man for all that and, while in Kamloops, he fell in love with Frances Stuart Innes, sister-in-law of the Rev. A Shildrick. Mrs. Mercier describes Frances as “one of those gentle, timid creatures who appeal most powerfully to a brave man's heart by their essential womanliness,” devout, shy to a fault, and often melancholy. Henry was smitten and a four-year courtship followed, no doubt because of his commitment to his work and his extended travels on horseback.

There followed transfer, in 1887, to the brawling CPR work town of Donald, between the Rockies and the Selkirks where the greatest hazard to railroaders was that of snow slides. Father Pat would later describe the immediate aftermath of one of these accidents as “The Strangest Funeral Procession Ever.”

As Anne Mercier tells it: “A report came to Donald that part of the line was blocked by a snow-slide. The snow-plough was sent out to clear the way, and while this was being done, a second slide occurred in which Mr. Green, the conductor of the snow-plough, was killed.

When the conductor of a snow plow was killed, Father Pat risked his own life to recover his body.—*BC Archives*

“As soon as this sad news was made known, the superintendent and other men went out to the summit of the pass to clear the road and to see what could be done. The snow was still coming down in small slides, the way was blocked, and Donald was cut off from communication with these men.

“Mrs. Green was wild with anxiety, and her husband's body could not be brought in, as the line was blocked by masses of snow. ‘Father Pat’ resolved if possible to relieve the poor widow's anxiety and restore to her the remains of her beloved husband. He took a toboggan or handsleigh, which could move over the snow where an engine could not cut its way through; and disregarding the danger threatening at every step from the snow-slides still going on, he made his way to where the dead man lay, took the body, reverently covered, on the little sleigh, and brought it in to Donald.

“He was away two days and a night. While under the protection of a snowshed, he would watch and wait for an opportunity to pass in safety to the next. He spent that night alone with the dead man on the desolate and dangerous road.”

It was acts such as this that made him a frontier legend. Mrs. Mercier again: “He acted boldly on impulse, led by his heart as often as by his head, perhaps oftener. And this loving impulsiveness won him the hearts of the people.”

When holding services in the court house, before he built a church in Donald, Irwin played an organ that he trundled about on a trolley. Never an eloquent speaker, his sermons were plain-spoken in simple terms. On one occasion when a parishioner complimented him on the day’s sermon he was obviously embarrassed; praise was due to God, he mumbled, not to him.

Beautiful St. Peter’s, the church Father Pat had built in Donald, is now in Windermere, having been “stolen” when Donald was abandoned. I’ve told the story in the *Chronicles—*see *Crime of the Century – The Case of the Stolen Church.*

Beginning with mostly women parishioners he gradually attracted more men to his services and, in due course, St. Peter’s was built. But what of his previous posting, Kamloops? It, too, needed a church and he began collecting money for that purpose while making his rounds on horseback.

And such rounds they were. “Father Pat did not confine his work to the mainline of the C.P.R.,” wrote Rev. C.F. Yates, the rector of Golden, “but journeyed down the Arrow Lakes, services being held as far south as Nelson, then a mere mining camp. We find, too, that he followed the Columbia from Golden to the Kootenay River, services being recorded at these places. Some six or eight clergy now occupy the territory thus covered, divided into five or six parishes."

It’s noteworthy that he confined his ministrations to colonists like himself, having admitted to a friend that he was out of his depth when having to speak through an interpreter to Indigenous people.

But two years of never-ending toil in Donald, 1000s of miles on horseback, camping out in all kinds of weather, began to wear down even a constitution as strong as his. Weariness and an attack of tick-borne mountain fever did the rest. After four months’ rest with his family in Ireland, he returned to the B.C. frontier, eager to resume his work.

Who better to describe his whirlwind schedule than Father Pat himself?

In one of his few surviving letters, this one addressed to DEAR B., he wrote: “You will have been prepared no doubt for this heading by my last two letters. Here I am in the whirl of all kinds of excitement. First, as to the way I have got to this scene of action, I had a good ride on Friday week, from Kamloops, with Mr. H., for about 38 miles, then we parted, he to Nicola, I to Douglas Lake.

“I put up with my friends the North of Ireland people, of whom I told you before. They were well and most kind; I baptized their child, and had some shooting, and started to the lake on Saturday afternoon; lost my way in the hills, and had quite a toss up as to where to go; however, as on Friday, I wandered about keeping a certain spot in view, and at last found myself at the right place.

“No notice had arrived about service; so I had to ride off round about and let them know I was there; darkish job, this, but I had a man with me who knew the way. Had service last Sunday there; good gathering. Afternoon rode 20 miles to Quilshana for evening service; good number. Englishman there, a wanderer; didn't see him afterwards. Slept with some friends at their nice house.

“Rode over to Nicola on Monday to find Mr. H. very ill, dysentery; couldn't go on.

“Heavy rain prevented us camping out, so I had to make up my mind to ride through to Similkameen in the day, although it was a long ride. Started at 5 A.M. on Wednesday, having got up at 2.45, fed horse and got pack together, then off to awake an Indian who was to show me up the first 10 miles.

“He, poor chap, was asleep away down in his wigwam by a river, and it was a rum thing to find oneself out in the pitch dark morning searching for a tent across a horrid marsh, with a very spirited young mare four years old, then riding up to the tent and halloaing there till the sleep was broken and a voice from within crying out 'all right.' Then back I went and had a bite more breakfast, and was ready to be off in the biting cold breeze across the hills by an old trail.

What better way to honour the generous heart of Father Pat Irwin than this “memorial ambulance” in the Rossland Museum? —*Tourism Rossland/Dan Conway*

“Indian showed me along till 6.30, then away I went, diving deep into unknown woods and the hills and streams ad lib, following an old trail of the Hudson[‘s] Bay Co. that they had had in '46. I can't tell you all I should like to, as it would be endless. The autumn tints have begun. Cotton trees quite golden, and scarlet shrubs thrown out by the dark pines, and all reflected in the clearest of mountain lakes, will beat any pen.

“Then as we rode through the bush the birds added new glories to the scene.

One thing you must hear of: after driving through the forest you come out on a whole chain of lakes, round which the trail winds until you get tired of their beauties; one of the lakes, called the Blue Lake, is the very loveliest thing I've ever seen. The water is just the colour of the blue or green round your old breakfast cups; some ore or mineral causes the whole thing simply to look like one big emerald crystal. I can't describe how heavenly it was; and then just in the right place was a great weed with bright scarlet leaves that showed off the wonderful colour to perfection.

“Though this was more lovely than the others, yet all had their own charms, and I can only-leave you to dream of endless lakes in a row, embedded in the finest fir-wood hills in the home of the deer and bear, and hardly broken by any but those feet who foot the trail. Not a house the whole way, and the whole day I didn't meet one single human soul, and I travelled some 50 odd miles along that trail.

“I think I accomplished the ride well, as it is a stiff one and seldom done in less than two days.

“Camping out in the woods being the fashion here, little camp fires fringe the trail, and you can see how the big pines have their middles burnt out by the campers. Well! I had a near shave of being out myself all night, and I suppose I should have camped, if I had not a good deal of that Irish Nil Desperandum in my blood, as when I got down off the hills on to these flats near here I could have given up myself for lost, as I knew Mr. Allison's [house] was on a river, and I was skirting a stream the whole time and yet never came to it.

“This was 6-30 to 7; it was pitch dark, but I chanced to meet [an] Indian who told me to keep the road, and so I did, but had to stick to it for 6 miles and then found myself on the brink of a steep bank ending in an Indian camp. The camp fire was blazing, and the Indians were all around their tents eating and gambling; so I gave up all hope of more than an Indian tent for the night.

“After halloaing and roaring at a fence round the camp, a nice Indian came out and pointed out Allison's house some few hundred yards away on the flat, so I was thankful, and had a good supper and went to bed, rolled up in blankets in one corner of a room.

“You would laugh to see me welcome the light of a house at last; and I found the best of good friends here, and they have such a comfortable place. On Wednesday I took it easy and went out with the boys here to give my horse some bunch grass up the hills, such a tear as we had. Now to get you into our shape here, I must let you know how we are fixed. Nothing but mines and gold is heard of here. The mines are just 12 miles away, but the men register here, so we see hundreds.

“There are all sorts and conditions of men—lawyers, farmers, cowboys from the United States and Manitoba, a jolly lot of rough cards, but rare good, fine-looking fellows and very hearty; and then more than a thousand Chinamen [sic]. Such is the pack there on the mines at Granite Creek....”

Henry Irwin, it should be remembered, was raised in comfortable circumstances in Ireland. Yet here he was, often alone, in the B.C. wilderness where few had even ventured. How long could such stamina and drive endure?

(To be continued)

Father Pat, ‘Hero of the Far West’