Celebrating 125 Years of Ministry in the West Kootenays
July 12, 1892 - July 12, 2017
This July, concurrent with Canada’s 150 Anniversary, Kootenay Anglicans will celebrate the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Parish of Kootenay, now Kokanee, and the opening of the first Anglican Church buildings for public worship in both Nelson and Balfour. By the turn of the 20th century, St.Saviour’s Pro-Cathedral was probably the dominant church in Nelson but it’s beginnings during the previous decade were more humble.
In 1890, Bishop A.W. Sillitoe of New Westminster, accompanied by his wife Violet, had paid a visit to the settlement of Nelson, riding on horseback from Sproat’s Landing over a trail which Mrs. Sillitoe described as very rough and difficult. The journey took ten hours to cover a distance of 28 miles. The July 19, 1890 Miner announced that “Church of England services will be held tomorrow, Sunday July 20, in Topping’s building, Baker Street, at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. The Bishop of New Westminster will officiate.” The Bishop later referred to the congregations on that Sunday as “excellent in the morning” and “overflowing in the evening!” The Bishop’s wife played the organ which had been borrowed from a local saloon...
...Rev. Reid was succeeded in 1893 by Rev. H.S. Akehurst who, in 1896, spearheaded steps for the construction of a more permanent church in Nelson, with the cornerstone of today’s St. Saviour's being laid with full Masonic Honours in August 1898. The Church was built over the following year from a design by architect Edward Curtis, who concurrently designed Nelson’s Catholic Cathedral of Mary Immaculate. Architecturally the stone and wood-frame gable-roofed building is described as an excellent example of Gothic Perpendicular church architecture and a quintessential English parish church.
From the Anglican Parish of Kokanee