Grant breathes new life into rural Manitoba church

A historically significant house of worship in Fork River, Man., can now be preserved thanks to the persistence of a determined Catholic community and an unexpected $100,000 grant from the provincial government.

Repairing St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church’s crumbling concrete foundation breathes new life into this landmark approaching its 90th anniversary in 2028.

Parish secretary-treasurer Hope Toporowski said parishioners were caught by surprise by the grant, telling The Catholic Register “we did not expect this lump sum of money” awarded through the province’s From the Ground Up-Safe Healthy Communities for All program.

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Catholics residing in and around this small hamlet in central Manitoba, a nearly four-hour drive northwest of Winnipeg, anticipated several more years of additional fundraising, but the ambitious Ukrainian dinner and dance social (zabava) the community hosted in August 2025 garnered wider visibility after a five-digit profit success (an exact figure was not publicly disclosed).

“This time they heard us,” said Toporowski. “They saw what we were doing. And last year's big fundraiser, I think, really showed that we are pushing to have this accomplished because we were not going to give up.”

Ensuring St. John the Baptist remains standing as the community’s spiritual beacon for many years to come was, and is, a deeply personal mission for Toporowski. Her grandfather, Peter Semchyshyn, was one of the volunteers who devoted two tireless years to its construction.

“We have to appreciate the fact that these pioneers worked manually very, very hard to probably go out to the bush, gather the logs, have them cut or shaved or whatever they did in those days to make them into boards to build this structure in the first place,” Toporowski marvelled. “The interior is absolutely beautiful. It's not an oil painting, but there are imitation oil paintings on the inside of the walls. The ceiling is arched and painted a nice blue, and the artwork in there is phenomenal.”

The church’s aesthetic treasures — stained glass windows, banner paintings and glass-mounted oil prints — were glowingly profiled in September 2021 by the YouTube channel Travels with Bill, a platform dedicated to showcasing hidden historical and architectural gems.

The video profile played a substantial role in spurring more vigorous and urgent fundraising efforts to restore the church that seats approximately 100 people.

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Of the current foundational state, Toporowski said, “it feels like you are walking downhill” when entering the establishment. However, she added, “nothing ever gave way, or we were never afraid to enter the church.”

A previous contractor had assured the community the parish structure was stable, but the Travels with Bill profile opened eyes and instilled a resolve to no longer accept this status quo.

For years, two annual liturgical services have been hosted at the parish. There is one in June commemorating St. John the Baptist’s June 24 feast day and another Mass of thanksgiving in September, October or early November. Scheduling depends on the availability of Fr. Oleg Bodnarski, who presides over services at 12 member parishes of the Dauphin Pastoral District. His main weekly parish is Resurrection of Our Lord Church in Dauphin. Celebrations at other houses of worship are scheduled monthly, several times a year or once during a calendar year.

Fork River Catholics attend Mass in Dauphin, Ethelbert, Rorketon or Winnipegosis, and members of these communities come out for the biannual liturgical celebrations at St. John the Baptist, which features a potluck meal at the community hall afterwards.

“The fellowship, the friendship and spiritual connection are amazing,” said Toporowski.

The goal is for paperwork to be filed before the snow falls this year so repair work on the foundation can ideally begin in earnest next spring. Consideration can soon turn to planning a 90th-anniversary celebration for the parish in 2028.

And this repair work is not the only sign of revitalization heading into the church's ninth decade. After many years of parish records being displaced, these important documents were ultimately discovered in a closet when one of the local families was packing up to move away from their home. Importantly, the community now has a much stronger understanding of the generations upon generations of individuals and families buried in the parish cemetery.

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“Two senior ladies actually sat and went through all those records,” said Toporowski. “We now have a permanent map of the cemetery and an alphabetical listing of the cemetery on the outside wall of the bell tower with all the names of all the people resting in our cemetery up to 2022.

“We had graves that we didn't know who was there because there was no marker. They had the wooden crosses, and they had, of course, rotted and been taken away, but these ladies were able to identify even the unmarked graves.”

(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)

A version of this article appeared in the September 13, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Grant breathes new life into rural Manitoba church"