N.S. church group to use $50K prize to make bells ring out again

The Saint-Marie Church opened its doors in 1905. (Source: Gabrielle Bardall)

This summer, the bells at the Ancienne Église Sainte-Marie in Church Point, N.S., could ring out for the first time in a long while.

The church recently won $50,000 from Canada’s Next Great Save and the group dedicated to the building’s preservation plans to use the money to work on the steeple, including the bell mechanism.

“We want Sainte-Marie to ring out,” said Gabrielle Bardall, co-founder of the Association Sainte-Marie héritage et développement. “It was part of the soundscape of the bay for so long. We’re hoping the bells will ring out on Aug. 15 for la Fête nationale de l’Acadie.”

Bardall, who helped form the group in late 2024, said the church brought in nearly 35,000 votes in the Next Great Save competition, which put it well ahead of The Spire in Kingston, Ont., and the Backhouse Grist Mill in Port Rowan, Ont., which came in second and third place, respectively.

“The competition opened on April 7 and within the first hour Sainte-Marie took a strong lead,” Bardall said. “We knew we were in a strong position.

“It’s validating to something we’ve always known, which is Sainte-Marie is a special place.”

The church, which was built by local carpenter Leo Melanson and 1,500 volunteers more than 120 years ago, was formally recognized as a Canadian Historic Site in 2001. It’s purportedly the largest wooden church in North America.

Last May the International Council on Monuments and Sites issued a “heritage alert” for the church as it faced possible demolition. Bardall said her group is in negotiations with the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth, which owns the church, over a possible transfer of ownership.

Bardall said their long-term goal for the church would be to change it to a museum dedicated to Acadian history. Many of the church’s original parishioners were descendants of Acadian families who returned to Nova Scotia after the 1755 Deportation.

“Most of the historic sites in Nova Scotia that deal with Acadian history focus on the Deportation,” Bardall said. “We want a museum that focuses on more recent history of Acadians.

“We’re focused on the numbers this can bring back to the community. It is an active tourist site, even if it’s been closed for years.”

Bardall said the competition gave something more important than money to the church: global community support.

“The community really stepped up and went way above,” she said. “We had coast to coast support in Canada and the U.S. We had a bunch of people from France, Italy, Mexico. It was big.

“The money is important but it’s the exposure that made this so special.”

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