Prairie Spirit

Perspectives on the Heritage of the United Church of Canada in the West

Dennis L. Butcher, Catherine Macdonald, Margaret E. McPherson, Raymond R. Smith, A.McKibbin Watts, Dennis L. Butcher, Catherine Macdonald, Margaret E. McPherson, Raymond R. Smith, A.McKibbin Watts

• Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
• Year: 1985
• eBook ISBN: 9780887550300
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

Written in celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the United Church of Canada and prepared by the Archives Committee of the Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario, this collection of articles explores, in fifteen articles, the issues and concerns of the prairie congregations of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational Churches that combined in 1925 to for the United Church of Canada. The volume also includes six short essays about unique congregations, two bibliographic guides on archive holdings, and a charming photo essay on historic churches in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

cms	Colonial Missionary Society of the Congregational Church of England and Wales
cmsl	Church Missionary Society, London, England
hbc	Hudson’s Bay Company
hbca	Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Winnipeg, Manitoba
pabc	Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Victoria, B.C.
pac	Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
pam	Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba
pwms	Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Society
uca	United Church Archives, Toronto, Ontario
uca-mno	United Church Archives, Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario, Winnipeg, Manitoba
uma	University of Manitoba Archives, Winnipeg, Manitoba
uwa	University of Winnipeg Archives, Winnipeg, Manitoba
uwo	University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario
wfms(wd)	Presbyterian Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (Western Division)
wms	Wesleyan Missionary Society Archives, London, England

BRITISH METHODISTS

1 hbc Governor George Simpson to Dr. Robert Alder, secretary of Wesleyan Missionary Society, 22 January 1840, hbca, A 1/60.

2 John McLean, James Evans: Inventor of the Syllabic System of the Cree Language (Toronto: William Briggs, 1890); Egerton R. Young, Rev. James Evans: Apostle of the North (Toronto: William Briggs, 1900); Nan Shipley, The James Evans Story (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1966).

3 hbc Governor George Simpson to Bishop of Juliopolis, 17 February 1840, hbca, A 1/60.

4 George G. Findlay and W. W. Holdsworth, The History of Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, vol. 1 (London: Epworth Press, 1921), 466.

5 Hugh A. Dempsey, The Rundle Journals, introduction and notes by Gerald M. Hutchinson (Historical Society of Alberta and Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1977), 16.

6 T.C.B. Boon, The Anglican Church from the Bay to the Rockies (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1962), 75.

7 Dempsey, Rundle Journals, 30.

8 Rev. Ephraim Evans to Rev. J. Carroll, 1865, uwo, London, Ontario, James Evans papers, #243.

9 Correspondence between George Simpson and Donald Ross, pabc, Donald Ross papers, AE R73.

10 Rev. James Evans to Chief Factor Donald Ross, 19 May 1845, hbca, D 5/14.

11 Sir George Simpson to Dr. Robert Alder, 16 June 1845, hbca, A 12/2.

12 Sir George Simpson to Chief Factor Donald Ross, 29 December 1845, pabc, Donald Ross papers, AE R73 La5.

13 Margaret Arnett Macleod, ed., The Letters of Letitia Mactavish Hargrave (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1947), 207.

14 wms, School of Oriental and Asiatic Studies, University of London, private file, no date.

15 Dr. Robert Alder to Sir George Simpson, 1 December 1846, hbca, D 5/13.

16 Statement by William Mason to Wesleyan secretaries, 23 December 1853, wms, box 106, item 12.

17 Boon, Anglican Church, 79n.

18 Ibid.

19 The primary documentation for the work of Mason as printer at Rossville and the materials produced by the Rossville Mission Press is to be found in the archives of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, London, England. Extensive letters and reports to the Wesleyan Missionary Society covering the years between 1846 and 1854 were written by Mason to the society. This material has been summarized and supplemented by Dr. Bruce Peel, librarian emeritus, University of Alberta, in a publication entitled The Rossville Mission Press (Montreal: Osiris, 1974).

20 uca, 30 December 1886, doc. E99, C88m.

21 Boon, Anglican Church, 79-80.

22 Ibid., 463.

23 Ibid., 94.

24 Wallace L. Chafe, The World of the North American Indian (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1974), 154.

25 "Annual Conference, June 1854," in J.E. Sanderson, Methodism in Canada, vol. 2, 1840-83 (Toronto: Briggs, 1910), 96.

AS OTHERS SAW US

1 See Christopher Vecsey, Traditional Ojibwa Religion and its Historical Changes (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1983), especially pp. 45-58.

2 The James Evans papers, the library, uwo. See the entry in his journal for 18 May 1829.

3 Hugh Dempsey, ed., The Rundle Journals, 1840-1858 (Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1977), 116.

4 The Rev. A.G. Morice, O.M.I., History of the Catholic Church in Western Canada, vol. 1 (Toronto: Musson, 1910), 190.

5 See: Morice, History of the Catholic Church in Western Canada, from Lake Superior to the Pacific, 200; Pierre J.B. Duchaussois, Mid Snow and Ice: the Apostles of the North-West (London: Burns Oats and Washbourne, 1923), 82. It was on the 1844 journey, when Evans was racing Thibault to He a la Crosse, that the accidental shooting death of native teacher Thomas -Hassel occurred, aborting the journey.

6 Joseph E. Champagne, Les missions catholique dans l’Ouest canadien: 1818-1875 (Ottawa: Editions des Etudes Oblates, 1949), 190.

7 Ibid., 191. The translation of these two passages is my own.

8 Dempsey, Rundle Journals, 192.

9 Ibid., 193-95.

10 The archives of the cms, 8 August 1840.

11 cmsl, 3 August 1840.

12 Letterbook, 1821-46, p. 202, cmsl.

13 The Journal of John Smithurst, 5 January 1842, cmsl.

14 Ibid., 6 October 1...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword by The Right Rev. Robert F. Smith
• Foreword by The Rev. Robert P. Hamlin
• Preface
• A guided tour of church architecture in the Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario: A photo essay
• British Methodists and the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1840–1854
• As others saw us
• John Black
• James Robertson and Presbyterian Church extension in Manitoba and the North West, 1866–1902
• The Woodsworths: James and J.S. – father and son
• Congregationalism in Manitoba, 1879–1937
• Head, heart and purse: The Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Society in Canada, 1876–1925
• John Mark King: First principal of Manitoba College
• “Keeping Canada God’s Country”: Presbyterian school-homes for Ruthenian children
• Nellie L. McClung: A part of a pattern
• Salem Bland and the spirituality of the social gospel: Winnipeg and the West, 1903–1913
• The Labor Church in Winnipeg
• Principal J.H. Riddell: The sane and safe leader of Wesley College
• A heritage of healing: Church hospital and medical work in Manitoba, 1900–1977
• Church union and western Canada
• The Chinese United Church of Winnipeg
• George Roddick: A man with a dream
• Cadurcis: A very rural church
• Dand United Church
• Blest be the tie
• A long goodbye to Mother Church
• Appendix I: Guide to the United Church Archives, Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario
• Appendix II: The Central Archives of the United Church of Canada: A bibliographic note on Manitoba and northwestern Ontario
• Notes
• Editors and contributors
• Back Cover