On the fourth Sunday in Advent, members of the congregation of East Lake Ainslie Presbyterian watched their church burn to the ground.
Firefighters were called to the 133-year-old church around 9 a.m. on Dec. 18, but flames soon poured out of the roof and the wooden structure was beyond saving.
“It was like you were seeing it and it almost wasn’t real,” said Johnena MacLelland, clerk of session. “It’s so hard to explain. It’s like you didn’t believe it was really happening.”
Volunteer firefighters couldn’t even reach historic plaques mounted on the church, said Charles MacDonald Jr., son of a former clerk of session.
It was the second Presbyterian church in Cape Breton to be destroyed by fire this month. Victoria, Birch Grove, whose congregation was preparing to celebrate its centennial anniversary next year, was reduced to a blackened heap in the early hours of Dec. 10. Police are not considering either of the fires suspicious.
Old wooden churches are usually dry and once burning they are “generally hard to save,” Brent Denny, deputy chief of the Cape Breton Regional Fire Service, told the National Post. Electrical wiring and heating systems are often to blame for starting such fires.
Both congregations were small, with between 10 and 25 regularly attending members. Both buildings were insured.
The congregation of East Lake Ainslie had planned a turkey dinner to be held the evening of the fire. It was postponed until Tuesday, when it was held in the church hall—a building separate from the historic church—which escaped unscathed. The congregation still plans to hold its Christmas Eve service at the local United church, and expects to continue meeting in their hall as they plan for the future.
“For members of the [East Lake Ainslie] congregation, their parents and grandparents were members of that church,” said MacLelland. “Our ancestors when they came here started that church. It’s a vital part of the community.”
It was the third church to have stood on the site since the congregation was established in 1833.
Please stay tuned for more information on this in the February Issue of the Presbyterian Record.
