Hard Times at the Woodville Mission, 1880s

Over its intermittent lifespan, the unfortunate mission at Pigeon Lake was the site of a good deal of destitution, disease and death.  What would be known later as the Woodville mission has its roots in the visit of legendary itinerant Wesleyan Methodist missionary Robert Rundle.  Rundle attempted to plant potatoes and beans, but found that the climate and soil were not conducive to agriculture.  In 1847 Benjamin and Robert Sinclair arrived in the region at Rundle's request, and stayed on for around five years when the mission was abandoned.

In 1864 the Reverend John McDougall's "honeymoon" with his new wife Abigail Steinhauer consisted of a travelling to Pigeon Lake to reopen the mission, which had reportedly been abandoned for around six years.  Upon visiting the mission in 1873, after he had been assigned to Morleyville, he later wrote, "long before I reached the house a multitude came running to meet their old friend. My first task was to shake hands with upwards of 300 persons."  Within a decade, these three hundred souls would be scattered to the winds, or worse.

"Mission houses at Pigeon Lake as photographed by J.B. Tyrrell during his survey of the area.
1886  Pigeon Lake, Alberta."  Community Memories

In 1882 John Nelson arrived at the again abandoned mission, now named Woodville after mission superintendent Josiah Wood.    It appears the mission was moved from the original site on the north side of Pigeon lake to the south-east side by 1883.  The Sharphead Stoneys were the band at Pigeon Lake at the time, and the decision was made to move them and the mission to the Bear Hills alongside the Cree.  This did not work, and in 1884 the mission was moved to where Wolf Creek meets the Battle River.  

Rev. John Nelson. Community Memories

The Woodville mission met with further hardship in the 1880s.  In 1886-87, the measles broke out killing one third of the band, and half the scholars at the school. (63rd Annual Report of the Methodist Missionary Society, p. xxv)  Two years later, it was noted that "The band at Woodville, fourteen miles from the Battle River Mission, has been greatly depleted by death, and the school almost extinguished." (65th MMS report, p. lii) The year after, the Methodist Missionary Society wrote in great understatement that, "The Rev. John Nelson writes in a somewhat despondent tone".  Nelson wrote,

Our Work here does not present the cheering aspect that we had desired.  There seems to be nothing on which to rest our hopes.  Disease and death have apparently marked the entire band.  (MMS Report, 1889-90, p.xxxii)

At the end of the 1880s, the mission was all but abandoned yet again.  Brother Nelson reported,

It is not without considerable regret that I make the last report of what has been one of the oldest and one of the most successful Indian missions.  It is here that the McDougalls, Woolsey, Steinhauer, and Campbell faithfully taught the people the "Way of Life."  Our band has been so reduced in numbers that the Indian Department has withdrawn the instructor, and the remnant of the people will be urged to join other reserves

It is with genuine sorrow we part from those with whom we have endured privation and suffered affliction.  I have witnessed their grief, heard their earnest entreaties that the Great Spirit would lift the afflicting hand.  (MMS Report, 1890-91, p. xlii)

Ross' suggestion that the Woodville mission was "successful" in any way is hard to reconcile with its history, but perhaps he was simply paying deference to those missionary greats that had come before him.  Today's Pigeon Lake Reserve is home to a population of 353, representing the First Nations of Louis Bull, Samson, Ermineskin, and Montana.