Settler Congregations of the Okanagan Valley
- Jada Turchak
- 6 days ago
- 10 min read
Okanagan Mission
Not long after the first fur traders surveyed the arid country of the Okanagan valley did European settlers begin to inhabit these lands. Unlike many of the pioneer settlements of Interior British Columbia, the first permanent settlement in the Okanagan was not established for fur or gold but rather stemmed from a religious devotion to the land and its people. Father Pandosy, oblate priest and missionary, arrived in 1859 alongside Father Pierre Richard and Brother Surel, to establish the first non-Indigenous permanent settlement in the valley.
The three religious spent their first winter in a crude shelter built on the shore of Duck Lake before moving into Kelowna to establish the Immaculate Conception Mission of the Okanagan. The mission resided on a piece of land named L'Anse au Sable or "Sand Cove" by the priests, and is known today as Mission Creek. In 1860, Fr. Richard filed the first land claim in the BC Interior for 160 acres, with Magistrate William George Cox of Rock Creek. Soon, a two-storey chapel was built on the property, which then held church services, housed the oblates, and was used as a small school. With this church, Pandosy's Mission accomplished many "firsts" for the valley, in being the first European settlement in the Okanagan as well as first school, place of Western worship, and burial ground between Kamloops and the boundary line. With this permanent dwelling, the oblates also brought several families to the valley and persuaded many more to stay over the years.
Okanagan Mission quickly became the pillar of the local religious and lay community, holding the title of regional headquarters for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, comprising over 2000 acres of land, and hosting the 1700 people that lived within its boundaries. The Mission was a hive of activity as lay and ordained brothers tended to the orchard, vineyard, vegetable garden, and the ranch's 550 head of cattle and 35 horses. By 1900, the mission property contained the original chapel, housing for the oblates, a root cellar, grist mill, two-storey dormitory, schoolhouse, a large lumber church of Immaculate Conception, barns and agricultural buildings. The S.S. Penticton, financed and operated by Captain Thomas Shorts, made its way to the Mission three times a week; demonstrating the flow of people between the Mission and the rest of the valley. It was only with the Canadian Pacific Railway's infrastructure and expanding ties to the Thompson River region, that the remote Okanagan Mission lost its official title as OMI headquarters. Being as it was passed over to the more accessible St. Louis Mission of Kamloops in 1896.
During his time in the province, Fr. Pandosy was a figure of great importance. He baptised, married, buried, and educated the settler and Indigenous populations from the American border to the mainland. In 1891, returning from religious duty in Keremeos, Fr. Pandosy became severely ill by the time he had reached Penticton. Thomas Ellis and his wife, a nurse by occupation, took the priest in for treatment but sadly he passed away on February 6th, 1891. His body was sent back to Okanagan Mission via the S.S. Penticton where he was then buried in an unknown plot of what was then the church cemetery and now open agricultural land. After the passing of Fr. Pandosy and the loss of its title as OMI headquarters, the Immaculate Conception Mission of the Okanagan was decommissioned by 1906, with all its original items moved to other congregations throughout Canada. Priests from the Mission continued to do religious work throughout the Okanagan through several changes in ownerships, while the land continued to be used by the community, however, without religious affiliation.
St. Anne's Catholic Church, O'Keefe Ranch, Vernon
Just eight years after the establishment of Okanagan Mission in 1859, ranchers Cornelius O'Keefe, Thomas Greenhow and Thomas Wood stumbled upon the Okanagan Valley while driving cattle. While the other men either moved on or led simple homesteads, Cornelius O'Keefe went on to start a small ranching empire in Vernon, complete with a Catholic church, graveyard, general store, post office, blacksmith shop, cistern and several agricultural buildings to stand alongside the O'Keefe family mansion and the living quarters of his hired hands.
Prior to the establishment of the St. Anne's Catholic church or the O'Keefe Ranch, Mr. O'Keefe made the arduous journey from Eastern Canada to British Columbia by steamship. O'Keefe first traveled down the East Coast to Panama, where he then took a train across South America, before meeting with a steamer that traveled from the West Coast to San Francisco. Then O'Keefe traveled on another steamship from California to Victoria, before finally taking a small paddlewheeler into interior British Columbia as far as Fort Yale, where he then traveled the remaining distance by foot. Once in Vernon, O'Keefe quickly established his residence. By 1871 the ranch had become the terminus of a well traveled wagon route connecting Kamloops and the Okanagan valley, and an official stop on the Barnard's Express Stage Line with the addition of his then newly built general store and post office. At this time, the Irish Catholic O'Keefe family hosted mass from their main residence, with services given from Oblate priests that traveled from Okanagan Mission. A letter found under the foundation of St. Anne's church in 2015 reveals the correspondence between the priests of Okanagan Mission and the O'keefe family prior to the establishment of their church, as Fr. Alphonse Carion writes, "Dear sir, with your kind permission I intend to say holy mass at your residence on Palm Sunday, the 14th inst (in or of the present month). Have the kindness to notify it to all Catholics living in your vicinity.” April 30th, 1889.
At the time that this letter was sent, Mr. O'Keefe had already long begun the work of establishing a church on his property, traversing across the valley, as early as 1886, to gather donations from settlers of all denominations. In the next three years, a small wooden church was built using the funds collected by O'keefe on a small piece of his ranch land.
While the private founding of St. Anne's Catholic Church obscures the exact details of where resources for construction were obtained, the preserved historic site shows a modest structure, built in the "Carpenter Gothic" style typical to this period of North American churches. St. Anne's was furnished with simple wooden pews and an internal heating system, as well as the more ornate pipe organ, altar pieces and vestments worn by the priests.
On December 24th, 1889, St. Anne's Catholic Church was consecrated during Christmas Midnight Mass. From then, the church operated until the 1940s with services received from various oblate priests from Okanagan Mission.
Today, the church and it's cemetery are preserved as part of the O'Keefe Ranch heritage park in Vernon.
St. Saviour's Anglican Church, Penticton
The first pioneer to call Penticton home, Thomas Ellis was an Irish Anglican who used his property, from the shore of Okanagan Lake to Skaha Lake, to run a cattle empire. Thomas Ellis, owning the significant property that he did, ran much of the small townsite affairs, including hosting church services in his ranch house for the surrounding settlers.
In September of 1880, The newly ordained Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster, Reverend Acton Sillitoe and his wife, Mrs. Violet Sillitoe, visited the Ellis homestead while surveying Interior British Columbia for potential church sites, evangelizing, and gathering settlers for future missionary work. During his short visit to Penticton, the Bishop and Ellis made plans for the establishment of an Anglican church in the town. While the church was being financed and built, Ellis continued to hold services on the homestead until November of 1882 when the church sanctuary was consecrated under the name St. Saviour's Anglican church. The church was not consecrated in its entirety so that the building could be used by outside denominations. Intermittently, St. Saviour's was used by the local Presbyterians under Rev. Whyte until St. Andrews Church was built in 1905.
Lumber to build the chapel was sent from the Postill homestead's small lumber mill just north of Kelowna and was rafted down the lake to Penticton. Ellis' ranch hand, J.P. Parrott, then hauled the lumber from the shore of Okanagan Lake to Fairview road for construction. The chapel had a capacity of 50 people and was a pleasant "Carpenter Gothic" structure with a chancel, sanctuary and nave, finely furnished with an organ, reading desk, a carved oak lectern, carpets and drapes. The edifice of the chapel was built as a thanks offering to God for protecting the Ellis family during an accident with their the family's horse and carriage on a trip to Kamloops that year. Thus, the church was named St. Saviour's.
Rev. Sillitoe gave the church's first service on November 6th, 1892 and continued alongside Rev. W. Outerbridge from then on.
In 1912, the population of Penticton had increased so much so that an expansion of the chapel was needed to accommodate the growing congregation. The chancel was sawn off and a transept built to lengthen the building. By 1929, even this was too small for the now bustling town and a new church was built between Winnipeg street and Orchard avenue. Later in 1934, the original Ellis chapel was moved to the new church grounds, where it remains today as the longest standing building in Penticton. One may also visit the Fairview Cemetery where the original foundation of the 1892 chapel and graves of many early settlers can be found.
Benvoulin Church, Kelowna
The Benvoulin Church of Kelowna, built in 1892 with funds received from the Aberdeen family, was the first Presbyterian church between Vernon and the United States border and the first Protestant church in the Central Okanagan. Despite their relatively short time spent in Kelowna, the church founders and to whom the S.S. Aberdeen paddlewheeler was named, Lord and Lady Aberdeen had an immense impact on the development of the Okanagan Valley. John Hamilton-Gordon, known also as Lord Aberdeen, was a colonial administrator, member of the parliamentary House of Lords, 7th Earl of Aberdeen and Governor General of Canada.
The Aberdeen's first came to the Okanagan in 1891, during a world-wide vacation that began the year prior. Lord Aberdeen saw much potential for the blossoming Okanagan Valley and soon purchased the Forbes Vernon Ranch as a summer getaway, Canadian estate, and business opportunity. Renamed to "Coldstream Ranch," the Aberdeen's now owned some 13,000 acres, 2000 cattle, 19 work horses, among a plethora of other animals, cared for by brother-in-law, Coutts Marjoribanks.
Alongside the maintenance of their ranch and the otherwise busy political lives led by both Lord and Lady Aberdeen, the couple also heavily supported the establishment of the Benvoulin church and donated significantly to the church-building fund. The cause was most passionately taken up by Lady Aberdeen who was known for her advocacy of the development of churches in pioneer settlements.
Writing in her diary on October 16th, 1891, Lady Aberdeen recounts religious life prior to the construction of the Benvoulin church, saying, Mr. Langell, the Presbyterian minister, called in the morning. He comes out to this valley from Vernon every Sunday, taking service one week at this end in the schoolhouse and the other at Mr. Postill's at the upper end going back to Vernon (35 miles) for an evening service. A church is now meditated, or rather two - a small one at Postill's and a large one here, for which Mr. Mackay has offered two acres of land near by. Service used to be held at the house of a farmer near by, Mr. Brant's, but he wanted the new church up his way and when he heard of Mr. Mackay's offer being accepted, he begged that the service might no more he held at his house. The Trustees of the School, though some of them R.C., gladly gave the school at once. A has promised $400 of the $1,000 required for the new church. Mr. L. seems a straight forward sort of young man originally a Nova Scotian. He has a wife and two children. Of course, he came with the usual petition that A should take the service to-morrow. This was however declined, as we had already arranged to hold a sort of informal service here in the afternoon when we understood that this was not the Sunday for service here.
The church was built in 1892 by the professional builder, and soon-to-be first mayor of the city of Kelowna, H.W. Raymer. The lumber used to build the church was sourced from Eli Lequime's sawmill, an early pioneer who was persuaded by Father Pandosy to register a land claim in the valley. As mentioned in Lady Aberdeen's diary, the plot of land to which the church resides was donated by real estate promoter George Grant Mackay. Mackay saw the construction as a sort of business opportunity, planning to develop the Benvoulin church into a townsite, complete with a train station along his proposed Vernon & Okanagan Railway line. Ultimately the plan was a bust and never fully materialized, and yet the church's construction was backed by enthusiasm for a prosperous new congregation. The influence of the Aberdeen's is plainly displayed in the overall design of the structure, considering architect, Howard Dell, drew significant inspiration from the Crathie Kirk parish in Scotland, near the Aberdeen's permanent residence.
The church was dedicated in September of 1892 by Rev. Thomas Somerville, hosting a small congregation of pioneer families and single homesteaders.
As the Benvoulin church was once the only Presbyterian church in the area, the church welcomed members from surrounding towns, who traveled down Okanagan lake every Sunday for service. In addition, the Methodist congregation of Kelowna used the Benvoulin church as their own site of worship, prior to their formal establishment in 1909. For these reasons, the Benvoulin church site continues to hold a unique sentimental value to a variety of congregations and denominations.
Finally, in 1925, the members of the Benvoulin church voted to form the United church of Kelowna, alongside the Kelowna Methodist and Knox Presbyterian churches. The Benvoulin church site sat idle for a time, before becoming a youth centre in the 1950s and a restoration and heritage site in the 1980s.
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