Calgary & Southern Alberta

The father and son team, George and John McDougall, initiated and dominated the Protestant mission field in southern Alberta. The Reverend George McDougall, after becoming the western superintendant of Methodist missions in 1862, established the Victoria Mission near Edmonton in 1863. Nine years later his son, John, was sent to the southwest. John and his bride chose a site among the Stoney near Morleyville. John McDougall was responsible for bringing the first cattle to southern Alberta, he reported on the disastrous effects of the whisky trade, and he was present at the signing of Treaty Seven.

Robert Rundle, one of four Methodist missionaries invited by the Hudson's Bay Company to establish missions in their territories, arrived in Edmonton House on October 17, 1840. Rundle remained in the area for eight years, making Edmonton the centre of his district which extended north to posts at Lesser Slave Lake, east to Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt in Saskatchewan, south to the lands of the Blackfoot, and west to the Rocky Mountains. On one of his trips in July of 1847, Rundle fell from his horse and severely injured his arm. It did not heal, and in 1848, Rundle left the west toseek medical care in England. He never returned. Reverend Rundle Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection