Long before he became Anglican diocesan bishop of the Arctic, Chris Williams—who died on May 16, six days before his 90th birthday—could make a strong first impression.
It was near 6 a.m. one day in May 1976 when Larry Robertson and his wife, married a week earlier, approached a mission house in Cambridge Bay after a trip that saw their plane break down. Robertson, later bishop of Yukon, was then a young priest assigned to the northern hamlet in what is now Nunavut. He saw that the house that would serve as his home needed repairs. Its windows were boarded up, but the lights were on, shining from around the plywood.
“I knock on the door and this guy comes out,” Robertson recalls. “He’s in his pyjamas, he’s got a pipe stuck in his mouth and puffing away. He takes the pipe out and he says, ‘You must be the Robertsons. Welcome to your new home.’ It was Chris.”
That first encounter with Williams, then regional archdeacon, captured for Robertson the openness, friendly nature and humour of a man he came to consider a friend. Inuit parishioners knew Williams—who served as an Arctic bishop for 15 years—as Supuuktutilik, “the one with a pipe,” though he eventually quit his smoking habit.
“The great thing with Chris is he always had a corny joke or a pun or a dad joke in his back pocket, no matter what the situation … just to lighten the mood,” Bishop Alexander Pryor, current diocesan bishop of the Arctic, says of his predecessor. “He had a real gift in terms of his sense of humour.”
A consistent theme in Williams’ life and ministry, Pryor says, was his emphasis on God’s love for each person.
“Every sermon I heard him preach comes back to that point—that we need to know that God loves each one of us and that the Christian life is not primarily about keeping rules,” Pryor says. “It’s about living into and accepting that love that God has for us.”
Anglicans in the North remember Williams for his leadership in raising up Indigenous clergy—his successor Andrew Atagotaaluk became the first Inuk diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion—and in backing the incorporation of First Nations and Inuit cultural traditions into worship. Fully bilingual in Inuktitut, Williams served as a lead translator with Inuit priests on a translation of the Old Testament into Inuktitut syllabics.
“Chris really lived the work of reconciliation before reconciliation was even a word that most people used,” Pryor says. “A big focus of his ministry was empowering Indigenous leaders.”
Bringing Indigenous culture into worship services, as when Inuit Anglicans began to use drums in church, reflected Williams’ view that ministry is “not [about] what you want to do in a church, but what does God want to do in that church, and that comes out from the people,” Robertson says.
‘For Chris, the Arctic was home’
Born in Cheshire, England, Williams was ordained as a deacon and emigrated to Canada in 1960 to serve as an Anglican missionary—inspired to minister in the North by a ceramic igloo he saw in college, according to his obituary published by the diocese. He was ordained as a priest in Salluit, Que. in 1962 and went on to serve in parishes in Salluit; Cape Dorset and Baker Lake, both in what is now Nunavut; and Yellowknife, N.W.T.
Pryor and Robertson call Williams among the last of a generation of British missionaries who travelled to Canada’s North before many communities were formally established. Much of his ministry, Pryor says, consisted of going out onto the land—initially by dog sled, later by snowmobile—and moving from camp to camp to visit people and worship with them where they were.
Robertson highlights Williams’ love for the people and language of the Arctic, his ability to adapt to local culture and to train local leaders. “For Chris, the Arctic was home,” he says, adding, “Chris became part of where he was. That’s a gift that makes so much difference when you talk about a church growing—growing in the Spirit and growing in leadership.”
In 1987 Williams was elected suffragan bishop of the Arctic and in 1990 coadjutor bishop. In 1991 he became diocesan bishop, serving in that position until his 2002 retirement.
Before Williams became diocesan bishop, Pryor says, a majority of clergy in the diocese of the Arctic were missionaries from the United Kingdom or Southern Canada. That balance shifted during his time in office and by the time Williams retired, a majority of Arctic clergy were Indigenous, which remains the case today.
As bishop, Williams was constantly looking out for his clergy, Robertson says. He recalls visiting the dentist—at the time, no Arctic clergy had medical insurance—and mentioning it to Williams, who asked him how much the work had cost and promptly mailed him a cheque from the bishop’s discretionary fund to cover the procedure.
Williams was physically active throughout his life as an athlete, hunter, fisherman and handyman. He took part in the construction of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Yellowknife as well as renovations to churches or mission houses. During one visit to a Baker Lake church where Robertson was serving as a priest, Williams installed a large furnace without being asked. “He was always willing to help … He was somebody who wanted to be part of the church in every way he could,” Robertson says.
After he retired as bishop, Williams stayed active both in and out of the church. A world champion swimmer in his youth, he returned to competitive swimming as a retiree and won multiple gold medals representing the Northwest Territories at the Canada 55+ Games from 2010 to 2018. He participated in Yellowknife’s annual Canada Day parade as a Rotary Club member, volunteered at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre and the Yellowknife Seniors’ Society, and rang the bell for the Salvation Army’s Christmas kettle drive.
As an honorary associate at Holy Trinity, Williams officiated services and made pastoral visits to the local hospital until Christmas 2025. Pryor calls him “a real inspiration … deeply involved in the life of the church right up until the end.”
Williams is survived by his wife Rona and their two children, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. A funeral service took place on May 23 at Holy Trinity Church in Yellowknife.
