Iconic Nova Scotia church in danger of demolition

The largest wooden church in North America is in danger of being demolished if a group looking to preserve it doesn't raise enough money for repairs.

The 115-year-old Église Sainte-Marie in the community of Church Point, N.S., is plagued with a leaky roof. Inside the church, buckets line the floor and a tarp is draped over the organ and some of the pews to protect it from water damage.

The church also needs to have some of its windows replaced.

Pierre Comeau, the president of the Société Édifice Sainte-Marie De La Pointe, said repairs are estimated to cost about $3 million.

"We have to raise money from the public at large, from various levels of government and possibly some companies who are in the business of donating funds for projects similar to this one," he said.

Comeau said it has an agreement with the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth saying the society will raise funds for the repairs by September 2021.

Once the money is raised, he said the Société Édifice Sainte-Marie De La Pointe will take ownership of the church.

Comeau said there's been a lot of interest in the project so far and they've already collected some donations.

"I think the local community views it as a monument to our perseverance and our faith," he said.

The society is also looking to find an economically sustainable use for the church, which hasn't been used on a regular basis for the past few years. It recently launched a survey to crowdsource ideas and figure out what people think.

André Valotaire, the parish co-ordinator and the president of the church's museum committee, said Église Sainte-Marie hasn't been used for regular services for three or four years because it's impractical to heat. 

Still, he said it holds a special place in the hearts of those who grew up in the surrounding Acadian community.

He said more than a thousand volunteers worked to build the church back in the early 1900s. The steeple rises to 56.4 metres.

"People have an attachment to the church, and I believe that if you talk to anybody in the French Shore region, they will mention somebody in their ancestry who worked on the building," he said. 

"They all have connections to somebody who worked on the building, so they all have a connection to it directly."

Valotaire said the bishop of the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth has said that if the society fails to raise the money, the church will have to be demolished.

Valotaire said it would be a "very sad day for the community" if that happens.

But Comeau has high hopes it won't come to that.

"If we were not optimists by nature, we wouldn't have undertaken this project," he said. 

"It's going to be a challenge, but we're hoping for success, yes. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here."