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Missions and Settlements
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Oral traditions, archaeological
evidence, and early documents all provide clear evidence
that spirituality played a vital role in the cultures of
the Aboriginal Peoples of Western Canada at the time of
contact. Fur traders and missionaries tended to see
Aboriginal Peoples' spiritual beliefs as superstitions
and dismissed them.
As the fur trade had fifty years
earlier, missionary activity spread rapidly across
Alberta. In 1840, Robert Rundle of the Methodist Church
established the first
mission in Alberta at
Fort Edmonton. In 1873 the prominent
missionary family, the McDougalls, expanded Methodist
missionary efforts to the south, where they began the
Morley mission among the Nakoda (Stoney) First Nation.
The first Catholic mission was
established at Fort Edmonton by Father Thibeault in
1842. Father Thibeault later started another mission at
Lac Ste. Anne, which in turn led to the founding of the
St. Albert mission in 1861 by
Father Lacombe. The Roman Catholic Church
also established important missions throughout the
north, including Fort Chipewyan in 1847,
Lac La Biche in 1853 and
Dunvegan in 1867.
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