Description

The Bishop Who Ate His Boots is a film by Richard Stringer who died before it was complete. After his death in 2007, several of Richards friends gave of their time to complete the film. Kelly Saxberg edited and finished the final version in memory of Richard.

After years of filming documentaries on such subjects as native housing in the North and Canadian Finns in Russia during the 1930s, Richard Stringer csc turned to his family history for his last film.
He made a documentary about his grandfather, Isaac Stringer. who was an adventurous missionary in the Arctic at the turn of the century. He later became Bishop of the Yukon and moved to Dawson City with my grandmother Sadie. In 1909, on one of his many walking tours over his vast diocese, he and a missionary worker, Charles Johnson, got lost in an early winter storm. They could not use their canoe as planned, so they had to walk 60 miles over a mountain range to get back to civilization. They ran out out of food and had to stew their spare moccasins to stay alive. Since then, Isaac Stringer became know as “The Bishop Who Ate His Boots”! Richard’s grandparents were very unique people living in controversial and adventurous times. The film shows Richard’s quest to learn as much as possible about them. There was much material with which to work. Isaac Stringer shot movies, took many still photos, and wrote detailed diaries.