Key Number:	HS 24933
Site Name:	Athabasca United Church
Other Names:
Site Type:	1603 - Religious: Church, Cathedral or Chapel

Location

ATS Legal Description:

			Twp	Rge	Mer
			66	22	4

Address:	4817 - 48 Street
Number:	17
Street:	48
Avenue:	48
Other:
Town:	Athabasca
Near Town:

Media

Type	Number	Date	View	Source

Architectural

Style:
Plan Shape:	Rectangular
Storeys:	Storeys: 1
Foundation:	Basement/Foundation Wall Material: Concrete
Superstructure:	Nailed Frame
Superstructure Cover:
Roof Structure:	High Gable
Roof Cover:
Exterior Codes:	Wall Design and Detail: Decorative Shingle Roof Trim - Eaves: Projecting Eaves Roof Trim - Special Features: Cupola or Lantern Window - Structural Opening Shape: Pointed
Exterior:	Eaves projecting, no rafters showing, pointed windows, cupola, decorative shingle under gables with fret-work wood medallion.
Interior:	1981 - Renovation.
Environment:	No other buildings occupy the site; a rectory built later is located on a lot to the south. Across the alley to the west is an abandoned public health unit.
Condition:	Structure: Fair. Repair: Fair. 1 JAN 1982.
Alterations:	Interior renovations.

Historical

Construction:	Construction Date:
Site bought. Completed	1912/01/01 1915/01/01
Usage:	Usage Date:
Church	1912/01/01
Owner:	Owner Date:
United Church of Canada	1912/01/01

Architect:	N/A
Builder:	Barrow Bros.
Craftsman:	Harrow
History:	Rev. C.F. Hopkins. 1905-1906 - 'Methodist Church vacant', 1. 1908 - Methodist congregation met in 'People's Hall' Rev. C.F. Hopkins first minister. 1912 - People's Hall sold, and present site bought. Worship held in Star Theatre until completion of present church in 1915. 1914 - 'Ladies Aid' formed. 1924 - CGIT formed. 1925 - Church Union. 'The building is architecturally unique, and the largest frame building north of Edmonton.' * * * Building/Site Description: The Athabasca United Church is situated on a sloping double corner lot facing north and east. It is a rectangular (almost square) frame structure with a very high open ceiling. No other buildings occupy the site; a rectory built later is locaed on a lot to the south. Across the alley to the west is an abandoned public health unit. The church's situation approximately divides the residential from the business districts of Athabasca. With the exception of the front steps, which have been removed, the building's integrity has basically been maintained. The grassed lot is adorned with assorted shrubs, deciduous and coniferous trees. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Athabasca United Church (Methodist before 1925) was built in 1913 at the height of Athabasca's strategic role as a gateway to Northern Alberta and the Western Arctic. Athabasca Landing was established by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1875 to recreate a western base for transporting Company freight to and from the fur trading regions of the far north and west. It became a critical staging point in the early 1880s when the Hudson's Bay Company abandoned the Methy Portage route from the east to the lower Athabasca River in favour of a transportation system which made use of the new Canadian Pacific Railway, the Calgary and Edmonton Trail, the Athabasca Landing Trail and scows and steam boats on the Athabasca River. By the 1890's an assortiment of rival trading companies were also active from Athabasca Landing, most notably Revillon Freres. In 1897-1898, the Klondike gold rush attracted hundreds of prospectors to build and launch their waterway conveyances at Athabasca Landing. After the turn of the century, settlers heading for the agricultural land in the Peace River Country passed through Athabasca Landing. Some went no further, but stayed to homestead there. The land rush reached its peak in 1913 as a consequence of the completion to Athabasca of the Edmonton and Slave Lake Railway by the Canadian Northern Railway in the fall of 1912. The Canadian Northern Railway and the Hudson's Bay Company began selling lots from their grants, helping to encourage land investment by settlers. From a hamlet of no more than one or two hundred in 1909, Athabasca grew to accommodate some 2,000 residents by 1914, supporting a rural population of thousands more. Optimistic proposals for the use of the natural gas in the vicinity were strengthened by discovery of gas right at the village. Athabasca appeared to have the transportation and resource basis for some degree of permanent prosperity. As it grew to prominence in the Alberta north, Athabasca was closely associated with the activities of various church missions. The Anglican Diocese of Athabasca, formed in 1874, moved its See to Athabasca Landing in 1890 where it remained until 1916. In 1894 Bishop Young set up a printing press at the Landing for the purpose of printing religious tracts for distribution to the Cree. In the same year the Huson's Bay Company donated land for a mission school. In 1906 the school was turned over to a secular board and became Athabasca's first public school. The Roman Catholic Church, active in northern regions since the 1840s, established a mission at the Landing in 1890. Unlike the Anglicans or Catholics, the Methodists brought no mission to Athabasca during the fur trading era. After the turn of the century, when agricultural settlement promoted a growing resident population of businessmen and farmers, the Methodist Church purchased land in 1904 for a church and a parsonage. A resident minister named Hopkins was called to Athabasca in 1907. Hopkins, who was also a carpenter, built a hall for church services. In 1910 Hopkins left Athabasca Landing to open up a Methodist Church in Grande Prairie. Following Hopkin's departure, the increasing demand for Methodist clergy was filled by Rev. Hawtin, Rev. Ernest Haywood and Rev. T. Bole. The new chruch building was constructed during the tenure of Rev. Bole, while Athabasca was thriving. Athabasca's prominence on the norhern Alberta resource frontier, however, rapidly declined. The Canadian Northern Railway was in no position to follow up its plans to carry railway construction further north. Two other provincially chartered lines did proceed along routes which soon eliminated Athabasca's role as gateway either to the Peace River country or toward Lake Athabasca: the Edmonton Dunvegan and British Columbia, and the Alberta and Great Waterways. After an abrupt reduction of transportation, population and agriculture in the area after 1914, Athabasca began from a much more slowly developing community than had originally been anticipated, yet stands as testimony to the pre-War optimism. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: When The Athabasca Times in 1913 that 'no Albertan town has a church to compare to their new Methodist church,' the statement was an accurate one, if only slightly overstated. The church is a unuque example of a large scale (seating 628 at capacity), wood frame structure in the Gothic Revival style. The church is like others in Canada, and indeed in North America, of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in that the Gothic detailing is loosely adapted to a plan frequently employed by adherents to certain Protestant faiths (Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists), one that was pivotal to aspects of their religious understanding. These Protestant denominations sought to minimize the physical and spiritual distance between man and God, and this belief was directly and consciously translated into their architecture. The plan of the Athabasca United church, for example, more closely approximates a square rather than the basilican rectangle commonly found in Anglican and Roman Catholic church designs. Furthermore, the plan was meant to aid in the demystification of the service. Hence, all were seated in plain view of the altar and pulpit, including those in the gallerie and as many as possible in the adjacent 'Sunday School room' that served as an overflow area to the main auditorium when the partitions were removed. Also, large windows which allowed the church to be lit with an abundance of natural lighting were to create an environment of clarity, reducing the medieval dimness created by many Gothic Revival stained glass windows. (The original building specifications for the Athabasca Church stated that glass throughout the building was to be light amber cathedral glass). Given the primary purposes of such designs, the purity maintained in the basic architectural style was typically of secondary concern. For this reason, Gothic Revival elements, as in the Athabasca Church, were informally adapted for the intended overall effect. The very popularity and acceptance of the Gothic style for churches throughout North America and England at this time crated a predisposition to use it in Alberta. The dominant Gothic Revival features of the Athabasca Church include the twin corner towers, the North tower being the tallest of the two, and the numerous pointed arched windows. The smaller windows that punctuate the towers are double hung sash, lancet windows; however, the two triple lancet windows that provide the main source of light to the nave are of a more ornate, Perpendicular Gothic Design. The steep cross-gable roof, a massing a typical of Gothic Revival architecture, is not unusual in Protestant church design. Its use recalls early Elizabethan forms and seems to suit the square plan particularly well, making both the North and East entrances look like completed facades. The Athabasca United Church is similar to other Protestant churches in its adherence to a square format, its Gothicized towers, pointed arched windows (several of which are large scale), cross-gable roof and incidental Gothic detailing (such as a lone, non-functional trefoil gable window). St. John's United Church in Vancouver (1906), the First Baptist Church of Brandon, Manitoba (1904), the First Baptist Church and the Central Methodist Church of Calgary, as well as the Methodist (now United) Church of Red Deer all desplay these characteristics. Each church design, however, bears entirely different Gothic detailing, often combined in imaginative ways. For instance, the towers of the church at Athabasca are crowned by peaked roofs, compared with the gables and four corner tower motif employed at the Red Deer Church, the battlements that finish the towers of the Calgary Methodist Church or the turrets which complete the towers of the First Baptist Church in Calgary. Perhaps the most important feature distinguishing the Athabasca United Church from all the others mentioned above is the ambitious use of wood as the primarry building material, in lieu of brick and/or stone. Frame construction was undoubtedly necessitated by financial considerations, but it did not hamper the imitation in wood of the brick or stone Gothic Revival churches of larger western Canadian cities. Despite its size, the roof is supported by the walls and a system of rafters and ceiling joists without any interior pillars. The architect of one of Alberta's largest frame structures was Ernest William Morehouse from Edmonton. Morehouse was born at Chatsworth, Ontarion, in 1871 and obtained his training as an architect at the Polytechnic School in Toronto. After graduation he worked as a contractor in Toronto, Chicago, Chatham, and Detroit before coming to Edmonton in 1910. His activities in Edmonton included the designing of various buildings in the Highlands district, including the Highlands Methodist Church, of which he was a parishioner. This association may have brought him the commission to design the Athabasca Methodist Church. The size of the building and the use of an Edmonton architect clearly reflect the expansionist spirit which contributed to its design. * * * ALBERTA CULTURE NEWS RELEASE June 10, 1985 Mary J. LeMessurier, Minister of Culture, announced today that the Athabasca United Church has been designated a Provincial Historic Resource. The Athabasca United Church (Methodist before 1925) was built in 1913 at the height of Athabasca's strategic role as a gateway to northern Alberta and the western Arctic. As it grew to prominence in Northern Alberta, Athabasca was closely associated with the activities of various churches. Unlike the Anglicans or Catholics, the Methodists brought no mission to Athabasca during the fur trading era. After the turn of the century, when agricultural settlement prompted a growing resident population of businessmen and farmerst, the Methodist Church purchased land in 1904 for a church and parsonage. A resident Minister named Hopkins was called to Athabasca in 1907. Hopkins, who was also a carpenter, built a hall for church services. In 1910 Hopkins's left Athabasca Landing to open up a Methodist Church in Grande Prairie. Following Hopkins's departure, the increasing demand for Methodist clergy was filled by Reverend Ernest Haywood and Reverend T. Bole. The new church building was constructed during the tenure of Reverend Bole, while Athabasca was thriving. Architecturally, the church is a unique example of a large scale (seating 628 at capacity), wood frame structure in the Gothic Revival style. Loosely adapted to a plan frequently employed by adherents to certain Protestant faiths (Methodist, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists). Perhaps the most important feature distinguishing the Athabasca United Church is the ambitious use of wood as the primary building material, in lieu of brick and/or stone. Frame construction was undoubtedly necessitated by financial consideration, but it did not hamper the imitation in wood of the brick or stone Gothic Revival churches of larger western Canadian cities. Despite its size, the roof is supported by the walls and a system of rafters and ceiling joists without any interior pilalrs.

Internal

Designation Status:	Designation Date:
Provincial Historic Resource	1985/05/31

Register:

Links

Internet:
Alberta Register of Historic Places:	4665-0531