Joseph Smith started the Mormon religion in New York during the year 1930. The Mormon settlers who came to Canada's west not only desired new space for settlement, but the freedom to practice their faith without fear of persecution. Discriminated against due to their practice of polygamy, the establishment of the first colonies in Canada were attempts to find areas where Mormons could express and practice their religious beliefs.
Between 1876 and 1879, over one hundred new settlements were established in other areas of the country and in Canada. In 1886, three years after the first expedition to western Canada, Charles Ora Card, president of colony in Logan, Utah, was sent north with two of his Mormon buddies to find "asylum and justice" for those to follow.
On September 29, 1886, Card arrived at the border between the United States and British Columbia. The party then traveled east to Alberta, and arrived in Calgary on October 14, 1886. They continued to search for an appropriate settlement location in the south of the province, journeying beyond Ft. Macleod near where the Kootenay and Belly rivers crossed. As the story goes, the final settlement site was chosen while camped at the junction of Lee's Creek and St. Mary's River.
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