'The perfect studio': Inuvik's Igloo Church turns into recording studio for local artist

When local singer songwriter Abe Drennan was looking for a studio to record his next album, he thought of an unorthodox location for a rock artist — an Igloo Church.

"Church is a sacred space, and music is a sacred language. And so what if we brought the two together?" says Drennan.

Drennan, originally from Bancroft, Ont., who lives in Inuvik, N.W.T., got in touch with the local priest of the historic Our Lady of Victory Church — otherwise known as the Igloo Church — to arrange it.

The priest was "very open" to the idea, says Drennan. But he did have some conditions.

"He said: we invite musicians and music in the space that celebrates life, celebrate our humanity," says Drennan. "My songs tend to go that way… There's a positive message there. So I didn't have to change too much."

'A perfect studio'

Typically, artists will layer separate tracks in a traditional recording studio.

But at the Igloo Church, Drennan says everything is recorded like a live concert.

"I want to keep it simple and focus on the raw sound and the message in the music," says Drennan, and the Igloo Church is a key location to achieve that.

"It's really a perfect studio. It's not too big in the church, there's a lot of wood. Of course, it's an igloo, round shape, so there's a natural reverb," says Drennan. 

"The richness of the sound in that space is amazing," says Drennan. "[It's] a little bit more intimate."

Living dreams 

One of Drennan's songs is called Living Dreams. He wrote it nine years ago. 

His parents walked by a narrow pathway every morning, with a construction zone on one side and a tent home on the other. One day, they saw a newborn child that had been born in the tent overnight.

"What inspired me in that was the beauty and the message of hope and the birth of a new child among so much poverty," says Drennan. "There was joy, there was new life."

Drennan has recorded eight songs in the Igloo Church so far.

This Saturday, he's planning to record the rest of the 12 songs for his new album, scheduled to come out in June.

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