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Many missionaries in early West

Author

John Copley

Volume

5

Issue

5

Year

1987

Page 16

The Protestant Christian Church was an important factor in the early days of the whiteman's settlement of western Canada. The Protestant church focused much of its attention on the Native people of the area.

The first Protestant missionary to reside in the Edmonton area was Robert T. Rundle, representing the Wesleyan Society of London. He arrived on October 18, 1840.

In "A History of Alberta" by James G. MacGregor, Rundle is described as, "a man of great fortitude" who crossed the sea, "to face conditions of which he had only a vague conception.

"Though he arrived under the handicap of being a greenhorn, he remained until the spring of 1848, and during that interval proved to be a man of rare courage."

His parish stretched from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to Jasper, Alberta, and from Lesser Slave Lake to Vanff, Alberta, where a mountain and the United Church bear his name.

MacGregor says of Rundle, "Suffering great hardships at times and once returning to Edmonton House alone with an arm, broken several days before, he nevertheless, made a mark upon the Cree and Stoney Indians that persisted for generations.

Another Methodist was Rev. James Evans, superintendent of the church's western missions. In touring his territory in 1841, his journey took him to Lesser Slave Lake, and eventually to Fort Chipewyan. He was the first missionary to travel that far north. Rundle went to Lesser Slave Lake for the first time the following year.

While the Roman Catholics were the first missionaries to go into the far north, the Anglicans were soon ministering to the Native people there, too.

The first was Archdeacon Hunter, who in 1858, visited Fort Chipewyan. He then went on to serve the native people at Fort Simpson.

The next year Rev. W. W. Kirby, doubled the Anglican presence in the north. The busy Anglican missionary effort grew quickly from that small beginning.

The Protestant presence in Alberta, and its strongest efforts among Native people, came with the arrival of the Methodist missionaries, the McDougalls ? father George and his son, John.

They arrived in the Edmonton area in 1862 after first visiting another early Methodist missionary, Rev. Henry Bird Steinhauer, at Whitefish Lake.

Steinhauer, an Ojibway Indian, had been educated by a German-American industrialist on the condition that he take the industrialist's name.

He came to western Canada as a young man. His goal was to minister the Cree, and stay in the area for the rest of his life.

His offspring would play a prominent role in the future of the Native people and the province of Alberta. Both Ralph and Eugene Steinhauer would become chiefs; Eugene would serve as president of the Indian Association of Alberta. Ralph later would become lieutenant-governor of Alberta, the first Indian to serve as the Queen's representative.

In his book "Pathfinding on the Plain and Priair", John McDougall says of Rev. Steinhauer: "Mr. Steinhauer was an ideal missionary. He gave himself with entire devotion to his work. His best was always to the front and God blessed his efforts. The cycles of eternity will reveal the good this faithful servant accomplished. It is always an inspiration to spend a few days on his mission."

Tragically, George McDougall perished in a blizzard.

John McDougall, however, devoted 50 full years of accomplishment to his vocation. As James MacGregor has written in "A History of Alberta", because of John McDougall's "half-century of devotion to the cause he espoused and his overwhelming egotism, he became one of the west's great men.

Never a shrinking violet, as shown by his autobiographical books, his constant acknowledgement of his obvious fitness ran hand in hand with his biting criticism of the Lord's enemies.

Among those he considered his rivals in the race for converts was Father LaCombe, whose long stay in the prairies, self-sacrifice and final recognition as one of the West's more famous figures, paralleled his own.

The west, like therest of the Christian world of the time, was filled with religious bigotry and bitter intolerance. Nevertheless, during its crucial era, what has been called "McDougall's muscular Christianity", coupled with his capability as a frontiersman, served the west well.

In 1864, McDougall established schools a Victoria and Whitefish Lake ? the first Protestant schools west of Portage La Prairie. The Victoria mission attracted so many Indians and Metis that the Hudson's Bay Company opened an outpost there. It was also at Victoria that McDougall developed a friendship with Cree chief Maskepatoon.

In 1865, McDougall rebuilt the mission that Rundle had first built years earlier at Pigeon Lake.

Along with the expansion of the church's influence came tragedy and growing tensions between the Indian and Metis and the white settlers. The tragedy came with the smallpox epidemic in 1870, and the tension with the Louis Riel incident at Fort Garry in 1869. This incident would eventually escalate and become the Metis Resistance of 1885.

The McDougall's lost many of their own family and friends in the smallpox outbreak, as did the Indians and the Metis. But even in their own grief, they tried to provide solace and comfort.

They tried to ease the tensions, too, through their good relationship with both sides, but the conflict developed beyond their control.

Out of the long-term dedication of the missionaries, however, came the foundation for the Protestant church in western Canada.