William Bompas was born in London, England on 20 Jan 1834. After six years as a deacon Bompas left England in 1865 and spent the next 40 years in the Canadian North.
William Bompas was sent by the Church Missionary Society to the Mackenzie River where there were 2 established missions at Fort Simpson and 800 miles away Fort Yukon. He travelled the area by canoe, dog-sleigh and snow-shoe for the next 9 years until 1874 when he returned to England to be consectrated the first bishop of Athabasca in St Marys Church, Lambeth. In England he married then returned to his diocese which stretched from the Yukon in the northwest to border of Rupert’s Land in the southeast, a distance of about 2000 miles.
In 1884 his diocese was subdivided and Bompas chose the northern half of the territory becoming the first bishop of Mackenzie River. In 1890 his diocese was again subdived and again Bompas chose the nortern section becoming the first bishop of Selkirk (Yukon).
A prolific writer, his works included The Diocese of Mackenzie River (1888), Northern Lights on the Bible (1892) and The Symmetry of Scripture (1896).
Bishop Bompas resigned in 1905. He continued to live in the Episcopal Palace at Cariboo Crossing (Carcross), Yukon where he died 9 June 1906.