One Man's Mile

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.

James Collins served his first 19 years of ordained Anglican ministry in
Northern Ontario, in the Diocese of Moosonee. One Man’s Mile is a
memoir of those years, particularly the time he spent at St. Thomas
Church in Moose Factory, Ontario, and St. John’s Church in Mistassini,
Quebec, among the Cree who call that vast expanse of territory their
home.

The book consists of a series of stories that are almost oral in tone,
as if Collins had developed the storytelling skills of the people among
whom he lived and ministered. Each story has as its focus a particular
person, such as Sophia the maker of moosehide mittens, or Billy on the
weasel hunt, or tent-building with Matthew. The stories are intended to
give readers a taste of and a bit of insight into Cree life on the land,
and they succeed in doing so. The reader comes away from One Man’s
Mile with a sense of respect for the Cree and their close dependence on
their ancestral land.

Yet there also remains a question: has Collins’s tone of respect
strayed into a form of romanticism? At times we get a glimpse of some of
the culture shock he experienced even after years among the Cree. But
perhaps the overall picture of his life there has been a little blurred
and reality has inadvertently been hidden from the reader.