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Today we remember Edmund James Peck, born in England in 1850, and died on this day in 1924 in Ottawa, Canada.

During his 74 years on earth Peck had many experiences. At age 10 his mother died and he had to go to work in a printing plant, three years later his father died, leaving him, his brother, and two sisters orphans. At 15 years he was in the British Royal Navy where he grew in his passion to evangelize his comrades. Ten years later he left the navy and enrolled with the Church Missionary Society in London to train as a missionary. In 1876 he responded to a request from the Anglican Bishop of Moosonee to go to Hudson’s Bay and the eastern Arctic to share the Gospel with the Cree and Inuit nations. On 3 February 1878 at Moose Factory he was ordained a priest at which Service he preached a sermon in the Cree language. In 1894 he helped found the first Anglican mission on Baffin Island.

A gifted linguist and a prolific author Peck became known amongst his peers as “the apostle of the Inuit.”

Lord Jesus Christ, you have commissioned your Church to preach the Gospel to the whole creation, making disciples of all the nations: inspire us with your Holy Spirit and empower us by your presence that, following the example of your servant Edmund Peck, we may find eternal joy in the fulfilment of your good and perfect will; in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.