The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada

The Cardston Alberta Temple is the oldest LDS temple outside the United States

Since its organization in New York in 1830, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had a presence in Canada. The first Latter Day Saint missionaries to preach outside of the United States preached in Upper Canada; the first stake to be established outside of the U.S. was the Alberta Stake; and the Cardston Alberta Temple was the first church temple to be built outside of the current boundaries of the United States.

Early missionary contacts

In the winter of 1829–30, Oliver Cowdery and Hiram Page visited Upper Canada while seeking money to finance the publication of the Book of Mormon. After the publication of the Book of Mormon in March 1830, the unbaptized convert Phineas Young preached in Earnestown.^[1]

Joseph Smith, Sr. and Don Carlos Smith—the first official Latter Day Saint missionaries to preach outside of the United States—visited Upper Canada in September 1830 and preached in villages north of the St. Lawrence River.^[2] In January 1832, converts Brigham and Phineas Young went to Upper Canada to convince their brother Joseph Young to join the church.^[2] After Joseph's baptism, the Young brothers taught their family and friends in Canada and baptized over 150 individuals and established four branches of the church, including ones in Kingston and Sydenham.

Joseph Smith preached in Upper Canada in September 1833 with Sidney Rigdon and Freeman Nickerson.^[3] Also in 1833, future apostle Lyman E. Johnson preached in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Later, John E. Page and apostle Parley P. Pratt served successful missions to Upper Canada; Page baptized over 1000 individuals between 1834 and 1836 and Pratt converted a number of individuals who would play a prominent role in the church, including John Taylor, Joseph and Mary Fielding, and William Law.

By 1850, approximately 2500 residents of Canada—most of them from Upper Canada—had joined the LDS Church.^[1] However, most of these members joined the gathering of the Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, Nauvoo, Illinois, and eventually Salt Lake City, Utah, and by 1861, the census of Ontario listed only 73 Mormons.^[1]

Colonization of Alberta

In 1887, John Taylor—who by then had become the president of the church—sent Charles Ora Card, the president of the church's Cache Stake, to Canada's Northwest Territories to establish a Mormon colony that was beyond the reach of the United States government's anti-polygamy prosecutions. Card led a group of followers and established a settlement along Lee's Creek; the settlement was eventually renamed Cardston in Card's honour.^[4] The Alberta Stake of the church was created in 1895^[5] with Card as its president; it was the first stake of the church established outside of the United States.

Michelsen Farmstead one of the original Mormon farmsteads in Stirling Agricultural Village

Mormon pioneers continued to colonize what would become Alberta in 1905. Before the turn of the century, Latter-day Saints had founded Mountain View, Aetna, Beazer, Leavitt, Kimball, Caldwell, Taylorville, Magrath, and Stirling. After 1900, Mormon colonies were established in Woolford, Welling, Orton, Raymond, Barnwell, Taber, Frankburg, Glenwood, and Hill Spring.^[6] Church apostle John W. Taylor—the son of church president John Taylor—played a leadership role in assisting Latter-day Saint emigration from Utah to Alberta.

In 1895, the Alberta Stake was divided in two: the Alberta Stake remained headquartered in Cardston and the new Taylor Stake—named in honour of John W. Taylor—was headquartered in Raymond. By 1910, there were about 10,000 Latter-day Saints in southern Alberta and in 1913 the church began construction of a temple in Cardston.^[6] In 1924, Heber J. Grant dedicated the Alberta Temple as the first church temple outside of the United States.^[7] A stake was organized in Lethbridge in 1921.

Stirling, one of Alberta's original Mormon settlements and a National Historic Site of Canada, was founded by Theodore Brandley in 1899, and is one of few towns in Canada plotted out by the Plat of Zion. Today, Stirling still follows the Plat of Zion; for this reason, the village is recognized as the most well-preserved Canadian example of the Latter-day Saint planning model.

Expansion outside southern Alberta

Alberta

A branch of the church was organized in Edmonton in 1933, with the Edmonton Stake being established in 1960. The Calgary Stake was established in 1953. In 1960 Alberta resident N. Eldon Tanner was called as a general authority of the church; he became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1962 and a member of the First Presidency in 1963.

In 1998, a temple was announced for Edmonton and in December 1999 Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the Edmonton Alberta Temple. In 2008, a temple was announced for Calgary by Thomas S. Monson.

Status today

As of January 1, 2011, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported 182,415 members, 47 stakes, 325 wards, 5 districts, 155 branches, 8 missions, 7 temples, and 163 Family History Centers, in Canada.^[8]

Temples

There are 8 operating temples and 1 announced in Canada.

Communities

Latter-day Saints have had a significant role in establishing and settling communities within the "Mormon Corridor" and other locations, including the following in Alberta, Canada:

See also

• Edward J. Wood
• Latter-day Saint settlements in Canada
• Mormon Corridor
• Mormon Trail (Canada)
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints membership statistics (Canada)
• Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
• Mormon fundamentalism

Notes

References

• Richard E. Bennett, “Canada: From Struggling Seed, the Church Has Risen to Branching Maple,” Ensign, September 1988, p. 30.
• B. Y. Card (ed.) (1990). The Mormon Presence in Canada (Edmonton, Alta: University of Alberta Press) ISBN 0-88864-212-1
• Lethbridge Stake (1968). A History of the Mormon Church in Canada (Lethbridge, Alta.: Lethbridge Stake)
• Melvin S. Tagg (1963). A History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada, 1830–1963 (Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University)

Further reading

• Bennett, Richard E. (1992), "Canada, The Church in", in Ludlow, Daniel H, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan Publishing, pp. 251–252, ISBN 0-02-879602-0, OCLC 24502140 .
• Palmer, Howard (1992), "Canada, LDS Pioneer Settlements in", in Ludlow, Daniel H, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan Publishing, pp. 252–254, ISBN 0-02-879602-0, OCLC 24502140 .
• Wright, Dennis A.; Robert C. Freeman; Andrew H. Hedges; Matthew O. Richardson (2000). Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint Church History: Western Canada. Provo, Utah: Department of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University. ISBN 0-8425-2395-2. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in North America
Countries	Antigua and Barbuda Aruba Bahamas Barbados Belize Bermuda Bonaire Canada Cayman Islands Costa Rica Cuba Curaçao Dominica Dominican Republic El Salvador Grenada Guadeloupe Guatemala Haiti Honduras Jamaica Martinique Mexico Nicaragua Panama Puerto Rico Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Sint Maarten Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands United States Virgin Islands Virgin Islands of the US
See also	North America Temples in North America Missions in Canada Missions in Central America and the Caribbean Missions in Mexico Missions in United States