“I still haven’t got a clear answer for that,” he said. “There is something about the north. Often I am really touched by the sense of the sacred amongst the people, the deep spirituality of the people.

“I have over and over again experienced the sense that I am on holy ground. You know that somehow God’s hand is in there.”

Daley, who is officially a priest of the diocese of Saint John in his home province of New Brunswick, told The Catholic Register his story while in Toronto May 28 for a visit with his sister.

It all began in 1989 when Daley first experienced the north while serving at St. Patrick’s parish in Yellowknife.

In the early summer of that year the bishop of the diocese of MacKenzie Fort Smith, then Bishop Denis Croteau, sent an open letter to all of his Canadian counterparts seeking assistance. As is the case today, priests in the Northwest Territories were scarce and the parishioners of St. Patrick’s needed a shepherd.

“He (Croteau) did the unusual thing of sending a letter around to all of the bishops in Canada and he still chuckles when he tells the story,” said Daley. “He says he got one answer back.”

Daley received a copy of the letter, as did all of the priests in his diocese, from their bishop — at the time Bishop Joseph Edward Troy.

“When I opened the letter I knew it was for me,” said Daley, accompanying his words with a fist thundering down on the table in front of him. “And I am not a spontaneous person. I find I am cautious, but there was something there.”

By mid-September the priest who’d never been north of Edmonton was descending in a small propeller-driven plane onto a runaway in the Northwest Territories.

“As they announced (we were landing) I can remember that my nose was against the window watching and all I saw was rock,” he said. “Just rock and a few little trees and I wondered what is this about, where am I landing? I felt excitement and welcomed.”

He was hooked before his feet even touched the ground.

Fascinated with his new home, and admittedly not much of a cook, Daley passed the evenings at the diocesan house where clergy and community members would gather for dinner.

“This was a whole new experience,” he said. “I was meeting people from strange sounding places. They would tell me stories about what it was like living in the communities and, I don’t know, I just found it fascinating.”

And this was how Daley spent the next two years of his life, ministering to the people during the day, embracing their culture in the evening and finding their communities on a map at night.

Before Daley knew it 1991 had come and it was time to say goodbye to St. Patrick’s parish and Yellowknife — so he thought.

“I didn’t specify clearly that I wanted to stay,” he said. “So it was a two-year agreement and everyone said to me if you made an agreement keep your word. When it was over, with some reluctance, I went home and everyone said you’ll get over it. I didn’t .... there was still the call of the north.”

Even being honoured with an appointment as pastor of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, New Brunswick’s only basilica, didn’t help subside Daley’s yearning for the north.

“I tried really hard when I went back to New Brunswick,” he said. “It was my region, everything was supposed to work (but) I could not get my heart into it. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

The calling weighed heavy on Daley over the next five years while in New Brunswick. That was until 1996 when the Maritime priest again found himself in the Northwest Territories; this time as a pastor in the Dehcho region.

Daley served in the region, which encompasses six different communities, before returning to St. Patrick’s parish in 2002. He remained there until 2008 before moving south — slightly.

“In February for almost five years I was in northern Saskatchewan,” said Daley. “Then in mid- February, when Bishop Murray Chatlain was appointed archbishop of Keewatin-Le Pas, I was asked to come to Yellowknife to be in the bishop’s office until the new bishop arrived.”

And that’s where he is today, and where the 72-year-old hopes God will keep him.

“It depends on what God has planned for me,” said Daley. “God works in strange and mysterious ways, way beyond me. I don’t have a plan (because) I’m finding that I can leave it more in God’s hands.”