Brother Maurice Larocque, a Catholic missionary to the Arctic who had previously been a carpenter, designed the church despite a lack of any formal architectural training, sketching it on two sheets of plywood that are prominently displayed in the building's upper storeys.

The round shape, which is painted to mimic an igloo, was chosen to mitigate possible structural damage that might be caused by frost heave.

[7] Construction was completed without a building permit as the federal government officials in Ottawa who would have issued one could not understand Larocque's blueprints and sent them back to Inuvik.

The surrounding neighbourhood is dominated by residential and commercial developments on similarly large lots, most no taller than two storeys and flat-roofed with thick walls and aluminum siding.

[3] The church is set amid a lawn; a chainlink fence runs along the sidewalks at the southern and western sides of the lot; the latter has some evergreens and shrubs native to the area planted along the inside.

[12] A short asphalt walkway, lined with white stones, leads from Mackenzie to the church's main entrance pavilion.

It is joined by a narrower one, similarly treated, that comes in from the east, connecting to the unpaved parking lot the church shares with the commercial building next door.

The church's sign stands in its lawn to the south; a stone marker protesting legalized abortion is in the western quadrant.

Affixed to it on the bays flanking the front entrance are wooden capital letters spelling out John 1:14: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

At the centre of the dome is a round 6.1-metre-wide (20 ft) cupola, set with very narrow stained glass windows divided by projecting wooden strips.

On the inside, the sanctuary has curved rows of wooden pews on a hardwood floor divided by a central aisle that offers seating for 350.

Joseph Adam, Roman Catholic pastor to the townsite under construction, began looking for an architect to design a church for the local congregation.

But that solution would not work for a conventional church due to the possibility of frost heave should the underlying permafrost melt partially.

[1] Larocque had sketched out his plans on two pieces of plywood, which are part of the church's structure today, visible on the stairs to the cupola.

Gravel for the foundation was quarried at Point Separation, the head of the Mackenzie delta, 130 kilometres (80 mi) south of the growing townsite still known only as East 3, and shipped downriver by barge to the construction site.

Once this had set, lumber that had been similarly floated 1,900 kilometres (1,200 mi) down the Mackenzie from Fort Smith near the territorial border with Alberta, the exterior walls were built on it and by the end of the area's short summer they and the first floor had been completed.

[21] Larocque spent the long winter in a nearby workshop, carefully supervising the assembly of the arches that were to form the domed roof.

On the inside, following the Oblate Order's reputation for making use of scrap material to minimize costs on construction projects, the shafts of used hockey sticks were used to floor a walkway in the cupola.

Adam commissioned Mona Sharer, a 17-year-old deaf-mute Inuk woman who had shown talent as an artist at a Catholic school in Aklavik, to paint the Stations of the Cross on the inside walls.

[24] Later that year the church was formally consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary by Paul Piché, bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Mackenzie (later elevated to the Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith).

[25] Eventually, East 3 was named Inuvik and became the administrative centre the government wanted, as well as a hub for oil and gas exploration in the Canadian Arctic.

In May, it was reported that its heating costs had doubled from the previous winter, to $3,400, after it changed its fuel to synthetic natural gas from the traditional kind.

[27] Chairman Doug Robertson told Northern News Services that the church was looking at applying for grants for green retrofitting.

It was also necessary to keep the building warm during the bitterly cold Arctic winters to prevent structural issues from developing, and to protect the interior artwork.

That led to some cost reductions, but the church was still looking for additional funding, hopefully through selling advertising to local businesses in community calendars.