page_title: John West (missionary)
section_title: Mission to Canada
hierarchical_section_title: John West (missionary) / Mission to Canada
caption_attribution_description: John West’s first_Church and School at Kildonan in Manitoba - Sketch from A Journal of the Reverend John West (1827)
context_page_description: John West was the first Anglican priest in Western Canada and a teacher, reformer and author. A missionary of the Church Missionary Society and a chaplain for the Hudson's Bay Company, the chapel he founded in Winnipeg became St John's Cathedral. Among his converts was Henry Budd, the first Native American ordained an Anglican priest.
context_section_description: The Hudson's Bay Company desired that all who came under its influence, including  those HBC retirees who wished to remain in the country, orphaned mixed-race children and others associated with the Protestant community in the west would have their spiritual needs met by a chaplain in the company's employ. West's placement in Western Canada was also due to the Company's belief that a number of missionary societies would provide financial support if the missions included Indian children from the Red River region; to this aim West established the Red River Academy. West sailed to Rupert's Land in May 1820 with George Harbidge, a school teacher. The first Protestant missionary to visit that area, West travelled without his pregnant wife and small children, intending to fetch them once a mission was set up. At the Red River Settlement West located his mission three miles north of Fort Douglas; here he constructed a chapel, a school and residences for himself and his Indian pupils. The chapel would eventually come to be known as 'The Upper Church' and later as St John's Cathedral.
  West decided that his best chance of spreading Christianity among the locals was through converting the children. In 1820 the CMS provided financial assistance to West for the education of local Native American children, including James Settee and a youth called Sakachuwescam of the Cree nation. After baptising the latter in 1822 West renamed him Henry Budd after his own mentor from his curacy in Essex. Budd attended the Church Missionary Society school which West had established in what was then known as the Red River Colony in what is now the province of Manitoba. Budd would become the first North American Indian to be ordained to the ministry, in 1850. In 1822 the CMS appointed West to head the mission in the Red River Colony.
  Attendance at West's services was encouraging but he alienated many in his congregation such as the Presbyterian Scots by his exclusive use of Anglican liturgy and rites. He was opposed to the liquor and fur trades, core businesses of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to marriage 'à la façon du pays', shaming some members of his congregation into going through an Anglican marriage ceremony with their female native partners. In addition, the Hudson's Bay Company director Nicholas Garry wrote that "West is not a good Preacher; he unfortunately attempts to preach extempore from Notes, for which he has not the Capacity, his discourses being unconnected and ill-delivered. He likewise Mistakes his Point, fancying that by touching severely and pointedly on the Weaknesses of People he will produce Repentance." He offended all by refusing to baptise an illegitimate child. To reach out to his Native Indian parishioners West began to learn a local Indian language. He did not encroach on the activities of the Roman Catholic missionaries even though he distributed Bibles in French and said he intended to learn French - but these activities lead to nothing.
  Rather that concentrating his efforts on the Red River settlement only West determined to work throughout the whole of Rupert's Land. With this in mind he travelled to York Factory during the summer months of 1821, 1822 and 1823 and set up an auxiliary Bible society there in 1821 with the assistance of Nicholas Garry. In 1822 West was delighted by the news that the Church Missionary Society would be supporting his efforts by sending Elizabeth Bowden, a schoolmistress and the fiancée of George Harbidge, West's earlier companion to Canada, to teach the Indian girls the Red River settlement. While in York Factory in 1822 West met the expedition of Captain John Franklin, who had been exploring the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage since 1819. Franklin persuaded West to work among the Inuit at Fort Churchill at Churchill, Manitoba, and West set off to do so in the summer of 1823, walking from York Factory to Fort Churchill and back, a distance of approximately 400 kilometres (240 miles).
caption: John West's first Church and School at Old Kildonan in Manitoba (1827)
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