Church stories and sokkies

Today I woke up thinking I needed to rush. Then I remember that I have another night in Sutherland. I saw the pretty dawn light surrounding the police station across from my bnb and had to take a picture. I went back to bed realising that my tour started at 10am and not 9am but I couldn't get back to sleep. I saved my tiredness for a long afternoon snooze.

My church tour was interesting. The guide is a minister at a different faith church in the town but he'd attended this one as a school leaver in the 1970s. It was interesting to hear how packed it had been seating around 1000 congregants, now probably sees around 30 although has 300 members. There's also the zoom options of the service for the elderly. This church is a lot prettier than some of the others I've been in with it's magnificent Canadian pine ceiling.

The metalwork was from Scotland and the building finished in 1899 just as the Boer War was happening. I was curious why the war would happen around Sutherland, but my guide explained it was on the traveling route to the diamonds found up country so of course the Brits wanted to get their hands on that land. The church's first Dominee(minister) was ironically a Scotsman who would lead the service once a month. The Dutch ministers didn't like the idea of Zuid Afrika being a foreign country ruled by Britain so they were reluctant to come to the new congregations from Holland. The British Presbyterian ministers didn't object and that appealed to the British authorities too.

I'm learning a lot of history from the 1800s and I'm finally beginning to understand what the Boer War was about. The buildings left behind by generations before are the silent witnesses to cultures rise and fall and I think that might be one of the reasons for my obsession with buildings. The silent neutrality..

There was supposed to be a dance (sokkie) in my Inn tonight but nobody arrived and I sat for a while but it got cold, loud and smokey so I think I am going to call it a night. I've loved my stay in Sutherland. Tomorrow I drive to Prince Albert.