The Church in Canada
Even before the Church’s 1830 founding, believers brought unbound pages from the Book of Mormon to Canada. Canadian Latter-day Saints played key roles in the early Church and its missions. Pioneer-era Latter-day Saint settlements extended into Alberta; the first temple outside the United States was dedicated in Cardston in 1923. In the 20th century, vibrant Church congregations developed across Canada.
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History of the Church in Canada
Even before the Church was organized, many early Latter-day Saints—including Joseph Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and six of the original Twelve Apostles—traveled to Canada to preach and attend to Church business. In 1836, Parley P. Pratt preached near Toronto to a small group of Christians that included Leonora and John Taylor and Mary, Joseph, and Mercy Fielding, who were seeking a church with the “primitive simplicity” found in scripture.
Many of the more than 2,000 Canadians who joined the Church migrated to the western United States, along with the main body of the Saints, beginning in 1847. In 1887, Charles Ora Card, a stake president in Cache Valley, Utah, led a small group of Saints to Lee’s Creek (later Cardston), Alberta. Over the next three decades, Latter-day Saints migrated to southern Alberta in large numbers. In 1895, the Cardston Alberta Stake became the first stake outside the United States, and in 1923, the first temple outside the United States was built there.
By the end of the 1970s, stakes and missions had been established in every territory and province of Canada. Several Canadian citizens have served as General Authorities and General Officers of the Church, including First Presidency members Hugh B. Brown (1961–70) and N. Eldon Tanner (1963–82), Young Women General President Ardeth G. Kapp (1984–92), and Relief Society General President Elaine L. Jack (1990–97). By 2018, more than 195,000 members of the Church resided in the country, with additional temples built in or planned for Toronto, Halifax, Regina, Edmonton, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Winnipeg.
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Notes
- Bennett, Richard E. “Canada: From Struggling Seed, the Church Has Risen to Branching Maple.” Ensign, Sept. 1988, 30–37.
- Card, Brigham Y., and others, eds. The Mormon Presence in Canada. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1990.
- “The Cardston Alberta Temple: Permanent, Solid, Dignified.” Apr. 2, 2019, history.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
- Chamberlin, Solomon. Solomon Chamberlin autobiography. Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
- “Edward J. Wood: Forty-Five Years of Service to Cardston.” Apr. 3, 2019, history.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
- “The First Modern Temple.” Mar. 26, 2019, history.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
- “The History of the Alberta Stake Tabernacle: A Tabernacle in the Wilderness.” Apr. 2, 2019, history.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
- Porter, Larry C. “Solomon Chamberlain—Early Missionary.” BYU Studies, vol. 12, no. 3 (1972): 314–18.
- Prete, Roy A., and Carma T. Prete, eds. Canadian Mormons: History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017.
- Wright, Dennis A., and others, eds. Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint Church History: Western Canada. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2000.