The Sound of God on Fogo Island

Musician Jake Nicoll appraising the pipe organ in St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Fogo, Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada. Photograph: Noah Bender

I was pleasantly surprised to see an article a few days ago in Britain's The Guardian about organ music in rural Newfoundland. And I was delighted to see that one of the organs that the group of musicians headed by Michael Cloud Duguay visited was on Fogo Island and historic St. Andrew's Anglican Church. The title of the piece is: A sacred kind of sound’: inside a solar-powered journey to preserve the music of church organs.

This team showed up at old churches in various communities preparing their solar-powered mobile studio to record instruments "both humble and monumental, whose complex systems of keys, stops, hand cranks, foot pedals, bellows and reeds were designed to vibrate the air around them until it approximates the sound of God" to quote from the article. 

Remarkably, I have literally been inside the pipe organ pictured above through a low, almost concealed door just to the right of Jake Nicoll's outstretched arm. I have written in the past about first looking inside the organ 45 years ago when I was a United Church minister in Carmanville,  across Hamilton Sound from Fogo Island. 

At that time the wind chest was still human-powered. There was a long history of boys from the congregation enlisted to pump the bellows, getting a message from the organist to get ready for the next hymn or anthem. There is even a gauge to indicate whether the pressure level was too high, too low or in the sweet spot. Over the decades those kids signed their names to indicate they had been in that role.

       Red spire of St Andrew's Church with Brimstone Head, looking toward Change Islands

We continue to visit Fogo Island most summers when we are staying on nearby Change Islands (see map). We take the ferry over to pick up groceries, go for a hike, and, if possible, stop in at the beautiful church. 

A few years ago we popped in and were soon joined by an older guy who turned out to be the custodian. i explained our experience of decades past and his face lit up. He had been one of the boys tending to the wind chest for the organ and took us to see his name amongst the many. 

May I say that the music played in the five outport congregations I served on my first pastoral charge after ordination did not bring to mind the phrase "the sound of God." More often "the wrath of God." 

 I am pleased that the Fogo church organ has emerged from the fog for a moment in the musical sun.