page_title: Nicolas Coccola
section_title: British Columbia
hierarchical_section_title: Nicolas Coccola / British Columbia
caption_attribution_description: English: Kamloops, British Columbia 1886. Photo credit to Deville, British Columbia Archives Catalogue No. HP067611
context_page_description: Nicolas Coccola was a French Oblate missionary in British Columbia, Canada from 1880 until his death in 1943.
  He spent 63 years in different regions of the province, working among the Shuswap, Kootenai, Dakelh, Sekani, Gitxsan, Hagwilget, Babine and Lheidli T'enneh First Nations.
context_section_description: Nicholas Coccola left France for British Columbia on June 6, 1880 aboard the SS Gascoigne, arriving in New York City thirteen days later. After taking a train to San Francisco, he boarded a small sidewheel sternwheeler and arrived in New Westminster on July 26.
  At the St. Mary's Mission, Coccola continued his studies and on Passion Sunday, 1881, he  was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and sent to Kamloops.
  In 1881, Kamloops was a new settlement and  consisted of two stores and a like number of hotels. The First Nations camp was three miles (5 km) outside of the village on the Thompson River. It had thirty homes, a school and a church. When Coccola arrived he began his service with Father Jean-Marie Lejacq, Father Edward Peytavin and Brother Surel, who all stayed in a 24 x 32 log cabin. Coccola spent much of his time building homes and working in the gardens. His duties often extended to providing medical attention to the local residents, as there was no doctor in the region. On one occasion he was sent with medicine for a son of a Chief in the Nicola Valley and when the man recovered, Coccola was sent on more sick calls to Fountain and Lillooet.
  In August 1883, Coccola and the other missionaries at Kamloops were contacted by Father Albert Lacombe of Alberta with the news that the construction camps of the Canadian Pacific Railway were moving across the Alberta-British Columbia border and that more missionaries were needed to attend to the workers. Nicholas Coccola heeded the call and went to Eagle's Pass and the other advance camps of the railway construction workers. He often stayed in the bunkhouses with the workers, giving communion and instructions and hearing confessions. He went from camp to camp, through to Rogers Pass and in the fall of 1883, arrived in Donald. By then the rails had arrived in town and there was a population of 300 living in tents, boxcars and shacks. Coccola said Mass anywhere he was invited to do so and prepared the children of Donald and nearby Golden for their first Communion. In November 1884, Coccola was at Craigellachie when the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven and with rail construction over, he returned to Kamloops.
caption: Kamloops in the 1880s
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