Pioneer Day throughout The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is generally recognized and celebrated on July 24, the anniversary of the arrival of the first company of Church wagon trains into the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.
In Canada there are other dates that warrant similar recognition.
John Taylor, the third president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born on November 1, 1808, in Milnthorpe, England, a small town not far from Windermere, the “Queen of English lakes.” His early life included work on a farm and at age 14 he became an apprentice to a cooper in Liverpool, England. Within a year he returned to his home in the beautiful and historic Lake District. Under the guidance of his family, he became very interested in religion and at the age of 17 became a Methodist exhorter or local preacher.
At the age of 22 he made his way to Toronto and connected with Methodists there. He again began to preach. With several members of his congregation, brother Taylor began a diligent study of the scriptures, supplemented with fasting and prayer. This group became convinced that the basic principles taught in the Bible were non-existent in contemporary churches. The group was examined by the hierarchy of the Methodist Church in Toronto for their orthodoxy and were found lacking. They were subsequently restricted from preaching their ideas but remained members of the Methodist Church.
The fasting and prayers of the group were evidently heard by Deity. Shortly thereafter, Elder Parley P Pratt, an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called upon Mr. Taylor with a letter of introduction from a merchant acquainted with him. Subsequent conversations led to his conversion to the church and his eventual migration to Kirtland, Ohio where John Taylor formed a close association with the Prophet Joseph Smith. After serving as a missionary for some time he was called to be an apostle. Following the death of Brigham Young, he became the third President of the Church in 1880.
From the above account it is evident that pioneer experiences were common in Canada at an early date. Later, the focus on pioneering work in Canada centred on Cardston, Alberta.
Charles Ora Card Comes to Canada
In 1886, due to religious persecution in Utah, Charles Ora Card decided to move with his family to Mexico. In a chance encounter with President John Taylor, Card was advised to explore a location in Canada’s Northwest Territories as a place of refuge. With two companions, Card made his way to the southeastern valleys of British Columbia, hoping to find a place to settle in or near the Okanagan Valley.
The group was not able to find a satisfactory location but heard of a place called Buffalo Flats to the east in the Alberta foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They took the train to Calgary, purchased teams and buggies and drove south to Fort Macleod, the location of the land office for the region. They continued south to a place near the confluence of the Waterton and Belly Rivers (Standoff). They found that land nearby was leased to the Cochrane family of Calgary who operated a very large ranching operation in the area.
They travelled on south to a point where Lee Creek joins the St. Mary River. Because this location was part of the First Nations Blood Reservation, they went upstream on Lee Creek and selected a settlement site on the southern boundary of the reservation, which later became known as Cardston. This place is just seven miles east of Buffalo Flats, the pioneer name of Leavitt, Alberta. The group returned to Utah, spent the winter in preparation, and in April 1887, twelve families migrated by horse and wagon to Cardston. Accounts of this journey are legendary. In this pioneer settlement, true pioneering activities began. Before the summer was out numerous log homes had been built and within a few months, small irrigation projects; one at Kimball, one near Aetna and two in Cardston were constructed.
Charles Ora Card was uniquely qualified to lead this pioneering venture. At the time he was Stake President of the Cache Valley Stake in Logan Utah. He had extensive experience in the school system, and as construction superintendent of the Logan tabernacle and the Logan Temple. He served as coroner, Road Commissioner, Justice of the Peace and for 16 years as a City Councilman. His extensive civic duties included 15 years as irrigation canal company director where he brought irrigation to multiple Utah towns.
Card’s extensive experience was fully utilized in the pioneer Cardston community.
Church Leaders Pioneer Irrigation in Southern Alberta
Shortly after arriving in Cardston, Elder John W. Taylor of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles began working with these Canadian pioneers. Card and Elder Taylor made the acquaintance of Elliot Galt and Charles Magrath of Lethbridge who began examining the possibility of developing major irrigation systems in Alberta. Until this time, most Canadians, guided by the Palliser report of 1864, believed that this area would forever remain barren.
When Galt and Magrath saw the effects of irrigation on prairie soil, they began petitioning both the Canadian Federal Government and the Church for a major irrigation project that would open these barren lands. Therefore, in 1898, after major negotiations among the parties, a contract was let whereby the Church would supply labour and settlers to build a large canal whose waters would enliven the communities of Magrath, Raymond, Stirling and later Taber with the economic and industrial development that now characterizes the area. Surely all these people were pioneers whose contributions are worth remembering.
Once irrigation was established in the South, church members pioneered further development activities. Church President Lorenzo Snow advised wealthy Latter-day Saints entrepreneurs to help others becomes self-sufficient. Following a sermon in General Conference Elder Taylor approached Jesse Knight, a wealthy Utah mine owner, with a request to help establish the agricultural industry in Southern Alberta. As a direct result, the Knight family purchased thousands of acres of irrigated land and built a sugar beet processing factory in Raymond, Alberta. From this relatively humble start in 1901, Alberta has become a major agricultural center.
Surely these efforts are also worthy of commemoration during the upcoming celebration of our pioneer heritage. On July 24, let us also remember the Taylors, the Cards, the Galt family (Elliot Galt was the brother-in-law of Charles Magrath) and all who founded our families and communities, wherever they are located.
Sources:
The Life of John Taylor, B. H. Roberts, (1963), 4-26.
Canadian Mormons, comp. Roy A Prete and others, (2017) 58-87.
Wikipedia. “Charles O. Card.” Last modified May 21, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ora_Card