Historic McDougall Memorial United Church, which burned to the ground in May 2017, will be restored.
The McDougall Stoney Mission Society administers the site, but the historic resource is controlled by the province. The province had not given permission to rebuild the church but that changed two weeks ago when the society was given the greenlight to proceed.
“In a couple of years I hope we all see the same church we remember and we see on photos worldwide of that iconic little white source that was sitting here” says McDougall Stoney Mission Society President Brenda McQueen.
While the province gave permission to rebuild it did not offer any money. The society is embarking on a fundraising campaign hoping to raise $700,000. McQueen says the cost of restoring a 144-year-old building is high.
“It needs to be exactly the same as it was so it needs to be the right wood,” says McQueen. “Everything will be much harder to find so it will be much harder to restore the church than to just re-build it from new.”
After the fire the society salvaged as much as possible hoping this day would come.
What remains of the structure is stored on site in a seacan.
“It looked bad. It looked really bad,” says Dave Chalmers of Chalmers Heritage Conservation Ltd. “But there was still a fair bit that could be salvaged including 80 percent of the original log structure.”
The 144-year-old building had seen renovations over the years. The latest in 1985 and that’s how it will look after restoration but crews will start by building the original 1875 log structure and then proceed by adding layers to it to bring it up to what it looked like before the fire.
“It will be a chronological event happening you will be able to watch history as we are building this thing,” says Chalmers.
Rebuilding the church is also an opportunity to restore relations with nearby First Nations. George McDougall, the church’s namesake had a good relationship with the Stoney Nation but in the century that followed relationship between the church and the Nation deteriorated.
Wesley band member Tony Snow, whose great-great-grandfather joined McDougall in signing Treaty 7 and says the restoration project will erase years of mistrust.
“The work of the Mcdougall church, the McDougall Society has been a beacon for that sort of reconciliation; to restore those old relationships, to rebuild what we had in order to go forward in a more positive way,” says Snow.
