The Tale of the Floating Mosque

Gather round kids it’s time to tell you a story, the story of a floating mosque.  As strange as it may seem there is a mosque floating down the mighty Mackenzie River as we speak bound for the small community of Inuvik in the Canadian Arctic.

What started as a little mosque on the prairie, Winnipeg to be specific, has become a sort of anti-hate rallying point.  The town of Inuvik, located high in the Canadian Northwest Territories is home to a small population of about 100 Canadians of the Islamic faith.

For years they have found space to meet for prayer in trailers and other ad hoc locations.  Wanting a proper space to conduct prayers and educate their children was an essential motivation to raising close to $300,000 it’s taken to get the mosque built and moving northward.

Mosque Stuck on Bridge (Photo - Ryan Murphy)

9/11: One Canadian Remembers.

It’s been nine long years since the events of September 11, 2001 happened and much like people who talk about remembering where they were when Kennedy was killed, I know that I will always have that fateful day burned deeply into my memory.

I remember sitting in my shared office at work my co-workers and I reading the newspaper and drinking our morning coffee as we did every other day before and since.  We were joking around listening to a local rock and roll station when the news slowly began to break from New York.

The reports sounded confused at first, a small plane had hit a building in New York, a Cessna one eye-witness had mistakenly reported.  It didn’t sound like a big deal at the time, we all went on drinking our coffee.  Then the news told of a second plane had crashed in New York, hitting the World Trade Centre and this time it was a commercial airliner.   Reports came with every song now, and it seemed prudent to change to a news radio station.

The second airliner approaching the World Trade Centre. (Photo: Reuters)