The Shrine of Saint Therese near Juneau – a place of contemplation and beauty

The shrine of St. Therese, a Cathloic retreat center 22 miles north of Juneau

The Shrine of St. Therese, located 22 miles north of Juneau at picturesque Pearl Harbor, along Favorite Channel, is a Catholic religious retreat center. It is adjacent to Glacier Highway.

Its genesis dates to the1920s and the desire of Juneau’s parish priest, Father William LeVasseur (from New Brunswick in Canada), to establish a religious retreat in Alaska. With the blessing of Father Joseph Crimont, Bishop of Alaska, planning began.

Crimont, originally from France, was a devotee of Saint Therese of Lisieux, a French Carmelite nun who died in 1897. When Crimont became Bishop in 1917 he designated Saint Therese as Alaska’s patron saint, so it was understandable that the retreat center, the first of its kind in Alaska, be dedicated to her.

The shrine is within Tongass National Forest, and five acres at Pearl Harbor, including a small wooded island just offshore, was obtained from the U.S. Forest Service. Development plans included a retreat house on the mainland, a small chapel on the island, and a causeway linking the island and mainland. Both buildings were to be constructed of logs.

The 1 1/2-story retreat house was begun in 1932 and essentially finished by 1935. The Forest Service granted the shrine another five acres in 1935 and work on the causeway began.

By summer 1937 the causeway was completed, and chapel construction began. Work that year included clearing the building site and excavating for the foundation. Chapel plans included a crypt, which had to be blasted from the island’s rocky core. Blasting was accomplished by the chief explosives expert for the Alaska-Juneau Mine, which was the major employer in the Juneau area..

Erection of the 28’ x 63’ chapel building began in 1938. The chapel (shown in the drawing) has exposed wooden trusses, and an attached 10′ x 12′, flat-topped 28′-tall bell tower.

D.P. (Doc) Holden, a skilled stone mason, was foreman for chapel construction. He had performed stone-work on the retreat house, and according to a Shrine of St. Therese publication, History of a Dream, was probably responsible for the Chapel being built from stone, rather than logs.

Stone for the Chapel was gathered from nearby beaches, and the Chapel was constructed in a simplified Gothic Revival style. Gothic Revival, based on medieval architecture, was popular during the 19th century, but lasted into the 20th century in collegiate and church architecture.

Gothic Revival features of the shrine’s chapel include its asymmetrical design; steeply-pitched, front-facing gable roof; the use of pointed arches for doors and windows; and its castle-like bell tower with crenellated parapet. (Crenellations are the indentations along the wall’s top through which, had this been a castle, defenders could have fired weapons.) Shrine literature refers to the tower as a Notre-Dame-style tower.

Henry Ellington, a master carpenter, was responsible for fabricating the chapel’s ceiling trusses – laying them out in a Juneau school gym to check for accuracy before moving them to Pearl Harbor on a flat-bed truck. Ellington also crafted the doors and wood trim in the chapel and lodge, as well as the chapel pews, all of Alaska yellow cedar.

The chapel was completed in 1941 and its first mass was performed on October 28th of that year. In 1945 an additional 46.61 acres were obtained from the U.S. Forest Service.

Since the chapel’s completion there have been numerous additions to the Shrine’s grounds, including several small cabins, a columbarium (a landscaped area with storage for funerary urns), a meditation labyrinth, and a rosary trail. In 2016 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops designated the Shrine of Saint Thérèse as a National Shrine.

The Shrine is open to the public. Because of the area’s natural beauty and the shrine’s contemplative opportunities, it is a popular destination.

Sources:

• American Architecture since 1780: A Guide to the Styles. Marcus Whiffen. M.I.T. Press. 1981
• “Shrine of Saint Thérèse designated National Shrine.” No author. In The Inside Passage. 10-06-2016
• Shrine of St. Therese website, <http://www.shrineofsainttherese.org/>
• The Shrine of St. Therese – History of a Dream. No author. Shrine of St. Therese. 2017