Santa's Boots
by Ed Ogle

The Reverend Carl Bingham, Anglican Priest in charge of the mission at Coppermine, decided his second year in that settlement to introduce the kids to Santa Claus.

To give the thing a bit more mystery, he ordered a complete uniform with facial mask. It all fitted beautifully except the shoes and he couldn't see how that would make any difference.

As he planned the ceremony, the children would first come to the afternoon services. Then Santa would come out and hand them each a gift as they filed past the old clump of a tree someone had brought in a 100 miles or so from Copper.

"This will get the little mugs", Father Bingham said. "They won't know what to do about a real Santa. They'll never know".

Of course they knew. From the first boy in line to the little girl at the end of it, each Inuit kid accepted his surprise gift and politely said, "Thank you very much, Father Bingham".

"Hells bells", the preacher said later. "I don't know how they found out so fast".

One of the village ladies said, "Mister Bingham, there isn't a kid in town who doesn't know that those are Father Bingham's kamiks (boots)".

Background Information

Talk about the Christmas season. Does everyone celebrate Christmas? Discuss Santa Claus and why there are so many different Santas around at Christmas. Finally, talk about whether or not it was a good thing to introduce Santa Claus to Inuit children.

Questions

1. What kind of a priest was Reverend Carl Bingham?

2. What does the word mission mean in this story?

3. What was the priest doing at Coppermine?

4. Use the word ceremony in a sentence.

5. Use another word for file in the sentence, "Then Santa would come out and hand them each a gift as they filed past the old clump of a tree".

6. Why do you think a tree had to be brought in from 100 miles away?

7. Where do the Inuit people live?

8. What does the word polite mean?

9. How did the children know that Reverend Bingham was Santa Claus?

10. Do you think the Inuit children learned the true meaning of Christmas just by learning about Santa Claus?