Filmmaker turns lens on his own family
SOLANGE DE SANTIS STAFF WRITER
After years of filming documentaries on such subjects as native housing
in the North and Canadian Finns in Russia during the 1930s, Richard Stringer
has turned to his Anglican family history for his latest film.
The Bishop Who Ate His Boots is a labour of love and work in progress,
being the story of Mr. Stringer’s grandfather, a well-known Anglican
bishop named Isaac Stringer who worked in the western Arctic in the early years
of the 20th century. Bishop Stringer kept an extensive diary and made films
of the North, documenting a now-vanished way of life. Although a classic Christian
missionary, he also adopted the ways of the native people and much of his low-pressure
evangelizing took the form of what would be described today as social work.
He and his wife Sadie lived for several years on one of the most remote places
imaginable – Herschel Island, off the north coast of the Yukon in the Beaufort
Sea. She sturdily adapted to life in the North, even giving birth to two children
in the mission house, with only her husband for help.
It has been a similarly arduous journey for Richard Stringer, who has completed
principal photography on the film, which he estimates will run about 50 minutes
in a television version and 70 to 80 minutes in a film version.
“I started in 1990 with the idea of making the film,” said Mr. Stringer,
who was born in 1944 and never met his famous grandfather, who died in 1934.
But he did have memories of his grandmother, who lived until 1955. Mr. Stringer’s
father, Wilfred (the Stringers had five children), died in Esquimault, B.C., of
hepatitis shortly after the Second World War. His mother, Clare, a British war
bride, took young Richard to live in Winnipeg where he grew up.
Educated in Toronto at Ryerson University’s film school, Mr. Stringer has
had a long-established career, working on feature films, TV movies, TV episodes,
commercials, corporate videos and documentaries. He won a Gemini award in 2000
and Canadian Society of Cinematophers Awards in 2000 and 2003.
In 1990, he talked to author Pierre Berton, who was raised in Whitehorse and
knew the Stringers. “Berton said he (Bishop Stringer) took movies, 16mm
black and white film in the 1920s and 30s, interesting documentaries of the North,
great shots of people building igloos, making boots. From 1905 to 1930, my grandfather
was bishop of the Yukon and he showed his films at the local church,” said
Mr. Stringer.
Bishop Isaac Stringer, seen here with his wife, Sadie, and two of their children, was a missionary in the North in the early 20th century. His grandson, Richard Stringer, is working on The Bishop Who Ate His Boots, a film about his grandfather, believed to be the inspiration for Charlie Chaplin’s boot-eating scene in The Gold Rush.
[photo by COURTESY GENERAL SYNOD ARCHIVES]
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Mr. Berton, who was born in 1920, told Mr. Stringer that “it was a big
thing – the bishop’s films – we looked forward to that!”
In 2004, Mr. Stringer began to discuss his idea for a documentary with broadcasters
at Toronto’s HotDocs film festival, but ran into competition with other
Arctic programming. Nevertheless, he filmed an interview with Mr. Berton (who
died in November, 2004) and in 2005 he received a $30,000 grant from the
Ontario Arts Council and began shooting more interviews and doing research at
such institutions as the Anglican national church archives in Toronto and the
Glenbow Museum in Calgary, which holds his grandfather’s films.
He realized that the film was more than just another documentary for him. He
wrote in a grant proposal that “I will be on a personal quest to find out
more about my grandparents … What made Isaac go up north? … Was
Isaac in conflict with the church’s treatment of the natives or did he
participate in unjust actions? Was he responsible for any residential school
activity? What was my grandmother really like?”
What he found were two dedicated, resilient people. When Bishop Stringer arrived
at Herschel Island in 1893, whaling ships were active in the Beaufort Sea, but
the Europeans brought alcohol and disease to the native population along with
trade goods. Bishop Stringer worked with the local Hudson’s Bay Co. manager
to stem the alcohol flow.
Now, on the Yukon Territory’s Web site (Herschel Island is now a territorial
park), an Aklavik elder is quoted as saying, “You know that time when they
first started to come, they had no priest ... they started drinking, they try
to kill each other, fought, drank. Their wives, they lost them to those white
people ... When that preacher came, just like that, all the bad people stopped.
Bishop Stringer, yeah!”
Sadie joined him in 1896. When her first child was born, she wrote in her diary, “My
husband, who had some medical training, was my only attendant. I was tough and
healthy and didn’t worry and the little girl’s birth seemed a happy
omen.”
Filmmaker Richard Stringer is the grandson of missionary bishop Isaac Stringer.
[photo by CONTRIBUTED]
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Isaac learned some of the native languages and survival techniques. The latter
served him well in 1909 when he and another missionary were lost in the wilderness
for 30 days. They boiled up an extra pair of sealskin boots, giving them just
enough animal nourishment to hang on until they reached a native camp. The story
hit the newspapers and Mr. Berton said he believed it was the inspiration for
Charlie Chaplin’s boot-eating scene in the 1925 film The Gold Rush.
In 1914, the Stringers traveled to England on a public relations and fundraising
tour and King George V asked to meet them. In 1930, Bishop Stringer became the
archbishop of Rupert’s Land, the vast western region of the Anglican church.
Shortly thereafter, he discovered that nearly $1 million had been embezzled from
the church. The strain wore down his health and he died in 1934 at the age of
68.
Last fall, Richard Stringer traveled west to do research and film exteriors in
the Yukon. Mr. Stringer has also been coping in the past year with a colon cancer
diagnosis, but he said that despite chemotherapy treatment, he felt fairly good. “At
this stage, I have no problem with energy,” he said, but he added that
some of the footage shows he lost some hair due to the chemo.
His investigative work left him feeling “pretty positive” about his
grandfather, who did not appear to have much connection with the much-criticized
residential school system, preferring to work toward the establishment of day
schools for Inuit, white and Métis.
Now he wants to finish the film, looking toward the HotDocs festival next year.
Being his own director and cinematographer, lugging equipment, scrounging for
funding, persevering through adversity – sounds like Richard Stringer is
a worthy descendent of his episcopal grandfather.
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