Fr Scott Michael John Whittemore was born in Victoria and raised in Saanich, BC. He is the youngest of three children born to Marie (nee Schleppe) and the late Robert (Bob) Whittemore.

Scott sought out and obtained employment during his first year as a teenager, picking strawberries and logan berries on the Saanich Peninsula. Numerous jobs followed, including park maintenance with BC Parks, work with children at a summer day camp and Easter Seal Camps, labour at the tar sands, planting trees, driving taxi, and a variety of other labour and human ministry positions.

As a young adult, Scott attended the University of Victoria for 5 years, first in Sciences and eventually he completed a Bachelor’s degree in rural Social Work. For the next nine years he worked in the Central Coast, residing at Bella Coola, and later at the Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii, as a Probation Officer/Parole Officer/Family Court Counsellor before pursuing his vocation to the priesthood.

Scott’s calling to the priesthood took him to the Benedictine Abbey in Mission, where he completed a Bachelor’s in Philosophy at Christ the King Seminary. He was sent to the Pontifical Institute of St Augustine’s Seminary, Toronto, for their 5 year formation program leading up to a Bachelor’s in Theology (from Rome) and a Master’s in Divinity. He was ordained to the priesthood on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in 2005, at Immaculate Conception Church, Kelowna.

Since then, Fr Scott’s appointments have included Nakusp and missions; Courtenay and the missions at Hornby Island, Gold River and Tahsis; Ucluelet with Tofino, Ahousaht and various other Nuu-cha-nulth missions on the West Coast; Port McNeill, together with Port Hardy, Port Alice, Alert Bay, Woss and a couple other missions on the north end of Vancouver Island. His most recent appointment has been to Salt Spring Island with outreach to the southern Gulf Island missions, including on Mayne and Pender Islands.

Fr Scott’s extracurricular interests have included playing lacrosse, hiking, fishing, photography, scuba diving, world travel, wilderness backpacking, rock climbing, cross-country and back country skiing, ocean kayaking, and swimming.