I WELL REMEMBER the first time I saw the igloo church in Inuvik, N.W.T. It was the early 1970s and it was my first visit to the Canadian Arctic.

Inuvik lies on the East Channel of the Mackenzie River Delta, some 100 kilometres south of the Beaufort Sea near the Inuit community of Aklavik. Even by Canadian standards the town is a new one, having been created on July 18, 1958, to serve as the administrative centre for the western Arctic.

Like any new arrival in town, I took a stroll down Mackenzie Road, the town's main street, to get my bearings and see the sights. The architecture was Universal Arctic – functional rather than decorative. For the most part, the buildings were single-storey wooden structures resting above the ground on wooden piles and painted in a variety of colours. Utilidors encasing the above-ground water and sewage lines, a common sight in the North, linked the buildings. It was early winter, there was a scattering of snow on the ground, and the fading Arctic light lent a gloomy atmosphere to the scene.

Then, as I progressed along Mackenzie Road, I suddenly came upon a large circular structure surmounted by a Byzantine-like dome, itself crowned by a cupola topped by a cross. It was an extraordinary and startling sight in what was then a town of squat rectangular buildings, but yet, at the same time, its commanding roundness seemed to sit more comfortably and congruously in that Arctic landscape than its shoebox-shaped counterparts might have. This was, I discovered, Our Lady of Victory church, better known throughout the western Arctic as the "igloo church."

Its history, I learned, was as intriguing as the structure itself. The church was designed by a local Catholic missionary, Brother Maurice Larocque, and was largely built by volunteers. Construction began in 1958 and took two years. The problem facing anyone building in the Arctic is that the permafrost (that layer of ground that remains frozen year round) must be shielded from melting or the building on top of it will shift and settle and, consequently, be damaged. Brother Larocque came up with a unique solution for the igloo church. It would have a double shell and would sit on a gravel-filled, saucerlike structure that would be set into the ground. The design, Brother Larocque correctly deduced, would prevent heat from the building from transferring to the permafrost.

At nearly 23 metres in diameter and standing almost 21 metres (about six storeys) high, the church was not easy to build, especially in the Arctic, where supplies are not readily available. Much of the wood used in the construction was transported by boat from Fort Smith, N.W.T., 1,400 kilometres to the southeast. And, reflecting a spirit of community cooperation and involvement, the structure incorporates recycled local materials ranging from old hockey sticks to discarded metal sheeting.

The entire cost of building the church was $70,000, which was a considerable achievement even by 1958 standards. Our Lady of Victory was blessed by Bishop Paul Piché of Fort Smith on August 5, 1960.

Much has changed in Inuvik since my first visit nearly 30 years ago. But not the igloo church. Now more than 40 years old, it is still going strong. "It's quite amazing," says Garry Smith, a maintenance manager with the local housing authority and a member of the congregation who has lived in Inuvik for a decade. "The structure has not shifted at all in any way. In this environment, that's a real tribute to its design and the people who built it." – Wynne Thomas