Little church in the foothills

Yesterday, 2 February 2014, I went on an annual birding trip to Harvey Heights, near Canmore, which is near Banff in the Rocky Mountains. This year, we drove around the Water Valley area, NW of Calgary, en route, hoping that we might just be able to find an owl of some kind - nothing : ) Driving west from Water Valley, we passed this tiny church, which I have photographed a few times before. This time, I was able to get a quick shot through the windscreen of the church from a distance, as I was not the one who was driving. Have added a closer, previously posted photo, below. Thanks, Andrew, for another great day out in the mountains!

A sign at the church had the following words on it:

"The historic church at the end of this pathway was constructed in 1875. At that time, native people were still hunting bison on the prairies. The young nation of Canada was only eight years old; the Canadian Pacific Railway still nine years in the future. And this church would become the heart of a thriving community, Morleyville, and for a time the largest settlement in what would be southern Alberta.

The story of this church is really the story of Rev. George McDougall who moved to western Canada with his family in 1862 to minister to the fur traders and native people. In 1873, the McDougalls established the first mission in the region and built this church. In doing so, they wrote an important chapter of Alberta's settlement history".

After George McDougall's tragic death in a snowstorm, his body was brought back to the church at Morleyville and laid to rest.

www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=8788