BIGHORN – Nearly two years after a devastating fire burnt the historic 142-year-old McDougall Church along Highway 1A east of Exshaw, the organization responsible for it is hoping the provincial government will approve plans to restore it.
“It was the oldest surviving Protestant church in Alberta,” said Brenda McQueen, president of the McDougall Stoney Mission Society and great-great-great granddaughter of George McDougall, founder of the Methodist settlement of Morleyville who built the church.
“It is a pretty important historical piece in Alberta. Hopefully we will see where it goes.”
Built in 1875, the church was known as the second oldest building on its original location in Alberta.
Originally the first Protestant Church in southern Alberta, the little white building was abandoned for more than half a century before being restored in 1952.
It received historic site designation in 1979 from the provincial government and deemed a Municipal Heritage Resource by the MD of Bighorn in 2014.
Then on May 22, 2017, the McDougall Stoney Mission Church was destroyed when a 4 a.m. fire burned the building and everything inside.
Initial reports deemed the fire accidental, however it was later confirmed RCMP were treating the incident as an arson investigation after an arson detection dog sniffed out traces of what was believed to be a fire-starting stimulant.
The fire is still considered arson and the investigation remains open, according to Const. Kary Moore with the Cochrane RCMP.
“No charges have been laid,” Moore said.
After the blaze, society members received a flood of support and started working with the province to figure out what options they had moving forward. Alberta officials presented four options – leave as is; create what they call a ‘Ghost Church,’ a structural representation of the original church with no roof or walls; build a modern church; or restore.
The society unanimously decided to the restoration project.
“It would be exactly the way we remember it. We have some drawings, photos and books … because we have all that, we have pictures of the hinges, pictures of the walls, pictures of every little aspect. Every little thing is going to be exactly what it was,” McQueen said.
Thanks to a project by University of Calgary students in 1985, historic architectural drawings and detailed records were documented as part of an assessment.
It was also recently discovered that up to 90 per cent of the original timbers might be salvable for the rebuild.
“It’s going to be from my whole life, exactly the way it has been,” McQueen said.
“We are just waiting – hopefully a decision will be made shortly.”
