Despite the popularity of the Anglican Church in the Canadian Arctic (a recent source claims that 85% of all Canadian Inuit are Anglican), anthropologists and historians have only recently begun to shift their gaze from the study of religious belief systems and practices that predated the arrival of Christian missionaries to the emergence of Inuit Christianity in Baffin Island, which began in the late 1800s. The relative newness of this field of study is certainly one reason why it has taken so long for the writings of Edmund Peck to find their way into print. Along with another missionary, J.C. Parker, Peck established the first Anglican mission on Baffin Island (Blacklead Island, Cumberland Sound) in 1894 and continued to conduct missionary work there until 1905. An important anthropological footnote to Peck's years on Baffin Island is that he provided dozens of pages of ethnographic notes to the anthropologist Franz Boas, the father of American anthropology, who then later used these and other data to develop not only his portrait of the Inuit of the eastern Canadian Arctic (the Central Eskimo), but his ideas about the methods and purpose of anthropology. Both Peck's ethnographic notes and his diary entries from his years on Baffin Island are included in this single 500-page volume, organised and edited by Frédéric Laugrand, Jarich Oosten, and François Trudel, three scholars largely responsible for giving Christianity a new perspective in Inuit studies.

For those interested in this period of Arctic history, this volume presents never-before-published material, including Peck's journal entries covering an 11-year period; a collection of reflections, stories, and a personal testimony by Eve Nooeyout (one of Peck's earliest converts); and a version of the Sedna myth and details of shamanic healing rites as told (or written — it's unclear from Peck's notes) by two of Peck's Inuit assistants in Cumberland Sound, Oosotapik and Qoojessie. The journal entries, ethnographic notes, and the notes of his Inuit assistants reveal Inuit striving to find continuity between the beliefs and practices of Christianity and their own cosmology. The reader learns that qaqqialiq (‘bringing things out in the open’) was an integral part of the shamanic complex, but that it also made sense to Inuit learning about the importance of confessing one's sins in order to get right with God. It is also shown that Peck struggled to find a coherent structure in Inuit beliefs by seeking parallels with his own theology, including the presence of a deity that ruled over all others. What is fortunate for the modern-day scholar is that Peck encouraged his Inuit assistants to write about the shamanic complex in their own words, which he then transcribed verbatim and which are included in this book. These transcriptions are especially important because accessing information about shamanism was very difficult during Peck's Baffin years; Inuit were reluctant to discuss shamanism publicly or allow non-Inuit to attend ceremonies involving shamans. Thanks to the detailed descriptions provided by Peck and his Inuit assistants, this volume provides a more detailed view of culture contact and the shamanic complex in the eastern Canadian Arctic than has hitherto been available.

One important insight the editors make in their introduction to the section containing Peck's ethnographic notes is that Peck provided a more objective description of religious life in Cumberland Sound at the turn of the century than did his contemporary Franz Boas, especially if one compares Peck's notes with the descriptions of Inuit rites and ceremonies published by Boas in 1907. Whereas Boas omitted those details that ‘would have suggested direct influence by or contact with whalers’ (page 290), Peck described shamanic healing rites as well as the ways Inuit celebrated Christmas and other Christian holidays. Boas’ editorial decisions are not surprising in some respects. Boas wanted to construct an image of a people who had not yet been contaminated by contact with commercial whalers and missionaries. Peck, by contrast, wanted to show that many Inuit were now Christians or at least on the path to conversion, even if that path had a slow start; it was not until 1901 that the first baptisms of Inuit occurred, seven years into his mission. It is surprising, however, that it was the anthropologist who misrepresented the social life of south Baffin Inuit at the turn of the nineteenth century and not the missionary, a twist that seems all the more ironic given Boas’ quest to rescue Inuit from the savage slot, a portrait supported by those social and natural scientists of the nineteenth century committed to tracing the grand evolutionary trajectory of humanity. In subtle ways the editors of this volume point the way to a more nuanced historiography of the representation of Canadian Inuit, and the next important steps are more fine grained analyses of how theoretical, political, and ideological trends motivated portrayals of Inuit ‘culture’ during different periods of history.

One of the strengths of the book is its dual identity as a compilation of archival resources related to Peck's years in south Baffin and a study of how Peck's works contribute to the transformation of religion and cosmology in the eastern Canadian Arctic. As a compilation, it is extremely practical. All of Peck's journals and ethnographic materials are neatly housed in one volume. Although some may find many of the journal entries repetitive, there is much new information that historians and anthropologists will find useful. The analytical aim of the book is less successful, however, because Peck's relation to the Inuit is never adequately discussed. Both the editors’ introduction to his journal entries and Peck's entries themselves provide surprisingly little insight into Peck's view of the Inuit or their view of him. One could argue that such a critique is unfair given the goal of the editors, a synopsis of his work and writings from his years on Baffin Island and not a comprehensive biography. But focusing on such a narrow slice of Peck's life and not providing enough analysis of what Peck included in his journal entries (as well as what he left out) leaves the reader longing for more biographical information about Peck and the state of Anglicanism at the end of the nineteenth century. The editors do not contextualise enough some of the peculiar choices made by Peck, including his willingness to gather ethnographic notes about shamanism for Boas, a task that he apparently never disclosed to his benefactors, the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Although we learn that the CMS subsidised Peck's efforts on Baffin, there is little information about the CMS or how it related to other bodies and institutions in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Other features about Peck that are not adequately discussed include his unwillingness to portray Inuit as inferior to Europeans. Compared to his successors, Peck seems unusually progressive in this respect. Archibald Fleming, who arrived on Baffin Island shortly after Peck's departure and who later became the first Bishop of the Arctic in 1933, wrote that Inuit ways were ‘dirty and degraded’ and their beliefs ‘crude and false.’ Still, anyone interested in exploring the roots of Inuit Anglicanism and understanding its ongoing popularity in the Canadian Arctic today will have to read this book.