'Come together and rebuild': Saskatoon man plans fundraiser for church destroyed in suspicious fire
A Saskatoon man whose family helped to build the Waterhen Lake Church is planning to help rebuild the church.
RCMP have been investigating what they’ve called “a suspicious fire” that destroyed the church earlier this week. They said no one was injured in the blaze.
However, Chris Martell believes the fire was a massive loss for the community.
He said that his great, great grandfather helped to build the Our Lady of Smiles parish in the 1950s.
“I grew up in Waterhen Lake with my grandfather. I spent a lot of Christmases and summers up there growing up, and we spent a lot of time with the church growing up,” he told CTV News.
Martell said he was baptised in the parish and was hoping to have his daughter baptised there too.
“We're all just devastated that the church is gone.”
Martel has planned a fundraising walk in August that would see him travel approximately 380 kilometres from Waterhen Lake to St. Mary’s in Saskatoon.
“The end goal for us is we just want to rebuild the church again, and, and all come together as it was when the first guys built it,” he explained. “They all came together and built it all as a community.”
Martell said surrounding communities and even some from Lac St. Anne in Alberta joined in to build the parish.
“So we'd like to do that again and as a community come together and rebuild it.”
Martell has set up a GoFundMe page in hopes of raising $50,000.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Boeing's financial woes continue, while families of crash victims urge U.S. to prosecute the company
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.