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Pakan Methodist Church
Pakan, Near
Other Names:
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1906 Methodist Church
1906 Pakan Methodist Church
Methodist Church
Pakan United Church
Victoria Settlement Provincial Historic Site
Pakan Church
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Statement of Significance
Description of Historic Place
The Pakan Methodist Church is a small, wood-framed structure, symmetrically designed, with a steep-pitched gable roof and horizontal wooden siding on the outside. It displays carpenter Gothic-style architecture with pointed arched windows rhythmically placed. The building is unadorned, lacking the traditional ornamental elements and religious symbols, like a steeple, a belfry or even a cross on its exterior. A well-proportioned entry porch on the front adds a minimal enunciation to the rectangular plan. The church is located in the historic Victoria Settlement and is adjacent to the Fort Victoria Provincial Historic Resource.
Heritage Value
The Pakan Methodist Church is significant for its association with the Victoria Methodist Mission and its efforts to convert Ukrainian settlers to Methodisim, and for its association with medical missionary Dr. Charles H. Lawford, who is regarded as the founder of the Methodist church’s Ukrainian mission movement. The church is also architecturally significant as an example of Carpenter Gothic style of architecture.
The Pakan Methodist Church is significant for its association with the Victoria Methodist Mission and was an integral part of the mission’s strategy to convert Ukrainian settlers to Methodism. The church was built to establish a new presence for the Methodist church in Alberta. The Methodist church saw itself as a bulwark of Anglo-Protestant civilization in the west and actively worked for the conversion of non-Christian and non-Protestant people. The mission at Victoria Settlement (Pakan) had been established in 1862 to evangelize indigenous people, but in 1901, its focus reoriented to concentrate on the rapidly growing Ukrainian settler population. The Methodist church viewed the Ukrainians as being a threat to the orderly development of western Canada as an Anglo-Canadian society. All of the services available at the mission were offered in hopes to lure area settlers to the new church and, ultimately, towards conversion to Methodism.
The Pakan Methodist Church is significant for its association with medical missionary Dr. Charles H. Lawford. Trained in theology and medicine, Lawford volunteered to establish a Methodist mission to Ukrainian immigrants in the west. He arrived at Pakan in 1900, but was forced to leave for medical issues and had his leg amputated. He returned in 1901 and set out to convert the Ukrainian settlers of the Greek Catholic and Orthodox faiths to Protestantism. To achieve this goal, Lawford built the Pakan Methodist Church in 1906, hoping that Ukrainian settlers who came to the mission for their secular needs (medical, legal and commercial) would be drawn into the new church for religious services, moving them down the path towards conversion to the Methodist faith. However, despite working 16 to 18 hour days and delivering at least four services a week, he was largely unsuccessful in turning Ukrainian settlers away from their own churches and cultural practises. As Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic churches were established around Pakan, Lawford’s methods, initially passive and accommodating, became increasingly aggressive. His heavy-handedness, coupled with his refusal to learn Ukrainian and Ukrainian settlers’ tenacity in holding to their religious and cultural traditions, contributed to the mission’s general lack of success. Although Lawford was a guiding pioneer in the Methodist church’s transition from focusing on an aboriginal people to newly-arrived Ukrainians, he lost the support of the Methodist church and left the mission following its relocation to Smoky Lake in 1922.
The Pakan Methodist Church is significant as an excellent example of a Carpenter Gothic style church. This style is particularly evident in the church’s wood frame construction, small-scale proportions and form, its steeply pitched gable roof, gothic-arched windows and the overall austere, unornamented appearance. This vernacular style of ecclesiastical architecture developed in North America and uses wood to emulate the architectural features and ornamentation of traditional, stone Gothic churches and cathedrals. Although the style is often associated with fancy trim and scroll-saw work, it also lent itself well to churches built in newly settled areas and protestant denominations that discourage high levels of decoration and frivolity, such as the Methodist church in western Canada around the turn of the century.
Source: Alberta Culture and Tourism, Historic Resources Management Branch (File: Des. 2355)
Character-Defining Elements
Key elements that define the heritage value of the Pakan Methodist Church include such elements as its:
Exterior
- fieldstone foundation that creates a small footprint oriented northwest to southeast, with the front facing southeast;
- front entry porch with a pitched roof proportional to the main roof;
- plain and simple design on the outside with no ornamentation or religious decorations;
- steep-pitched gable roof with cornice returns on both ends;
- symmetrically arranged fenestration pattern on the front and both side walls;
- pointed arch windows, single-hung in a three-over-two pattern;
- circular window on the front gable end above the front porch;
- horizontal drop-siding covering the exterior walls;
- chimney (believed to be made of brick and now covered with tin) projecting from the roof ridge at the rear wall of the building;
- location within the historic Victoria Settlement and its association with the buildings and landscape features associated with Victoria Settlement and Fort Victoria.
Interior
- horizontal wood plank finishing on the interior walls and ceiling;
- wooden floorboards likely of fir;
- mouldings around the windows;
- two steel tie-rods securing the side walls;
- simple bracket-type chimney support on the northwest (end) wall.
Location
| Street Address: |
Victoria Settlement Provincial Historic Site, Pakan |
| Community: |
Pakan, Near |
| Boundaries: |
Portion of Lot 6 in Victoria Settlement |
| Contributing Resources: |
Building: 1
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ATS Legal Description:
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Mer |
Rge |
Twp |
Sec |
LSD |
4
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17
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58
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12
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PBL Legal Description (Cadastral Reference):
Latitude/Longitude:
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Latitude |
Longitude |
CDT |
Datum Type |
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54.0035 |
-112.4028 |
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UTM Reference:
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Northing |
Easting |
Zone |
CDT |
Datum Type |
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Recognition
| Recognition Authority: |
Province of Alberta |
| Designation Status: |
Provincial Historic Resource |
| Date of Designation: |
2019/03/07 |
Historical Information
| Built: |
1906 to 1906 |
| Period of Significance: |
1906 to 1922 |
| Theme(s): |
Building Social and Community Life : Religious Institutions
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| Historic Function(s): |
Religion, Ritual and Funeral : Religious Facility or Place of Worship
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| Current Function(s): |
Leisure : Museum
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| Architect: |
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| Builder: |
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| Context: |
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Additional Information
| Object Number: |
4665-0836 |
| Designation File: |
DES 2355 |
| Related Listing(s): |
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| Heritage Survey File: |
HS 42274
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| Website Link: |
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| Data Source: |
Alberta Culture and Tourism, Historic Resources Management Branch, Old St. Stephen's College, 8820 - 112 Street, Edmonton, AB T6G 2P8 |
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