Home   /   Sitemap   /   About   /   Partners   /   Mission Era Timeline   /   Research Corner   /

Home » The Missions »  Mission Sites »

Overview Establishment People and Events Legacy

To Listen to the Heritage Trails, you need Real Player available free from   Real Networks.

Whitefish Lake was opened as a mission in 1858 by the Reverend Henry Bird Steinhauer and Benjamin Sinclair. Although its beginnings were small and humble, the mission, in what is now central Alberta, quickly grew. 

A schoolhouse and church were the first priorities. Soon the mission employed a professional teacher and the community consisted of between 300 and 400 residents. The Whitefish Lake mission circuit included several tribes that signed Treaty 6 and which eventually joined to form the Saddle Lake Band. 

In 1881 a short-lived Anglican mission developed at Saddle Lake. A few years later the Roman Catholic Church established a more permanent mission, which included the Blue Quills residential school. At the same time, the Methodist mission divided into Whitefish Lake and Saddle Lake.

Today, the Blue Quills residential school is the Blue Quills First Nations College, which has been under First Nations' management since 1971. The Methodist mission has been superseded by the Goodfish Lake and Saddle Lake United churches, which are part of the All Native Circle Conference of the United Church of Canada.

 Small Pox Epidemics, Part 1: Early Explorers and Fur Traders Bring Disease to  New World, 1520-1726
Listen | Read

Small Pox Epidemics, Part 2: First Recorded Epidemic in West, 1736
Listen | Read

Small Pox Epidemics, Part 3: Epidemic of 1781-82 Wipes Out Native Villages Across the West 
Listen | Read

Small Pox Epidemics, Part 4: David Thompson's Journals and the Tales of Sokumapi
Listen | Read

Small Pox Epidemics, Part 5
Listen | Read

[« back]