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Our Lady Of Victory Church (Inuvik)

Our Lady Of Victory Church
A one-story round building whose walls are white with large blue rectangles topped by a silvery dome with a blue cross and cupola at the center. From the camera a paved walk leads to blue wooden steps going up to its entrance, topped by wooden blue "IHS" letters. A aign in the yard at right says "Our Lady of Victory Church".
West (front) view, 2015
A yellow map of Canada, showing provincial and territorial booundaries, with a red dot in the northwestern section of the Northwest Territories
A yellow map of Canada, showing provincial and territorial booundaries, with a red dot in the northwestern section of the Northwest Territories
Location of Inuvik within Canada
Basic information
Location Inuvik, NT, Canada
Geographic coordinates 68°21′29″N 133°43′20″W / 68.35799°N 133.72220°W / 68.35799; -133.72220Coordinates: 68°21′29″N 133°43′20″W / 68.35799°N 133.72220°W / 68.35799; -133.72220
Affiliation Roman Catholic
Year consecrated 1960
Leadership The Rev. Jon Hansen, C.Ss.R, pastor
Website www.olvinuvik.com
Architectural description
Architect(s) Maurice Larocque
Groundbreaking 1958
Completed 1960
Specifications
Direction of façade south
Capacity 350
Width 23 metres (75 ft)
Height (max) 19 metres (62 ft)
Dome(s) 1
Dome height (outer) 16 metres (52 ft)
Materials Reinforced concrete, wood, aluminum
Elevation 20 m (66 ft)

Our Lady of Victory Church, often called the Igloo Church, is located on Mackenzie Road in downtown Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. It serves a Catholic parish of the Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith. It was established in the mid-1950s, around the time Inuvik was being built; the church was opened and consecrated in 1960 after two years of construction.

Brother Maurice Larocque, a Catholic missionary to the Arctic who had previously been a carpenter, designed the church despite a lack of any formal architectural training, sketching it on two sheets of plywood that are prominently displayed in the building's upper storeys. The round shape, which is painted to mimic an igloo, was chosen to mitigate possible structural damage that might be caused by frost heave. Its unique structural system, "a dome within a dome", further protects the church with a foundation consisting of a bowl-shaped concrete slab on a gravel bed atop the permafrost and, in the building itself, an intricate system of wooden arches to support the load.

It is the only major building in Inuvik that does not rest on pilings. Wood for the church was floated down the Mackenzie River from Fort Smith, nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) away. Construction was completed without a building permit as the federal government officials in Ottawa who would have issued one could not understand Larocque's blueprints and sent them back to Inuvik.


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