A historic Nova Scotia church known as one the largest wooden churches in North America has been officially put up for sale by the Archdiocese of Halifax – Yarmouth.
Église Sainte-Marie in Church Point was built more than a century ago and was once a centrepiece of Acadian worship in the area.
For the past decade, community members have been trying to save it, as congregation numbers dwindled and repair costs for the 15,000-square-foot structure ballooned to an estimated $10 million.
But with the building now officially deconsecrated and up for sale, its future remains uncertain.
“The day that the wrecking ball would show up would be one of the saddest days of my life,” says Pierre Comeau, who was head of the Société Edifice Sainte-Marie de La Pointe before the group dissolved once fundraising efforts came up short.
That was after a “mystery benefactor,” who had approached the archdiocese with an offer to pay for repairs and future maintenance, disappeared.
“For reasons that are unknown to us, he withdrew his offer and became totally non-responsive,” Comeau recalls.
“To me, it was a roller-coaster; there were some lows, there were some very big highs,” he adds, “so now we’re sort of resigned to what will happen, and disappointed and discouraged.”
Église Sainte-Marie has stood in the community since 1905, touted as the largest wooden church in North America.
Church caretaker André Valotaire has spent many hours over the past 25 years tending to the building and giving tours to visitors to share its rich history.
Now, he’s not sure what’s next.
“It’s just sad to think that it might not be here anymore, because people look at it, it’s an icon, people come to Clare, see it from miles around,” he says.
The parish held the final mass at the church on Christmas Eve 2019, and it was officially deconsecrated in a ceremony last November.
That’s also when the furnace stopped working, and a leak in the ceiling is only getting worse with time.
According to numbers provided by the archdiocese, 32 church buildings in Nova Scotia have been deconsecrated in the past decade, and nine of those buildings have been sold.
One of those is just down the road. St. Bernard Church officially closed in 2022 and was put up for sale the following year.
It was purchased by Nation Prospere Acadie and la Société Heritage Saint-Bernard soon after.
The National Trust for Canada, a non-profit that helps communities save heritage spaces, estimated 10 years ago that roughly a third of all faith-owned buildings in the country would be gone by 2030.
“This is a very significant problem nationally,” executive director Patricia Kell says.
“It’s always tragic when we lose a heritage building,” she adds. “That’s because each of these buildings has a story to tell about how we came to be the place that we are now.
“When the building is lost, then the tangible evidence of that past, that formative experience, is also lost.”
But she says there is very little to no funding from most governments to help.
Église Sainte-Marie became a Nova Scotia registered heritage property in 2001 as an architectural landmark and a representation of Acadian culture and history.
But Thursday, the province’s minister of communities, culture, tourism and heritage said the province won’t be buying the building to save it.
“We don’t have the ability and a program that we’ve budgeted for to turn around and invest in it and to fix it,” Allan MacMaster says.
Valotaire expressed frustration that the province hasn’t been willing to offer any financial assistance.
“We think sometimes if it was sitting in a different place, rather than a small Acadian village in southwestern Nova Scotia, that the help would come,” he says.
Both he and Comeau hope an investor sees the potential of repairing the building and using it as a museum or community space.
A spokesperson with the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth says parish leaders will be consulted on what to do if the church doesn’t sell.
“I continue to have hope, yes, but the hope gets dimmer as time goes by,” Comeau says.