Editing Fort Edmonton (section)

====Influx of missionaries====

Two [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] missionaries, Francois-Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers, were the first to visit Fort Edmonton (called ''Fort-des-Prairies'') in 1838.{{sfn|Goyette|Roemmich|2004|p=30}} Starting in 1840, the Fort housed the [[Methodist Church of Great Britain|Wesleyan]] [[missionary]] [[Robert Rundle]] as a company chaplain. Rundle's tenure lasted until 1848, and his ministry and missionary work was met with competition of a sort by [[Jean-Baptiste Thibault]], a Catholic priest who, like Rundle, was attempting to evangelize natives in the area. A chapel was erected inside the fort in 1843, which the Reverend Rundle boasted could host "(one) hundred Indians"; the structure also had two small rooms for Rundle's private use.{{sfn|Rundle|1977|pp=143-144}} Meanwhile, Rowand complained that the presence of ministers in his fort was a distraction for the natives, and was ostensibly impeding the fur trade business.{{sfn|Goyette|Roemmich|2004|p=56}} On a personal level, however, Rowand had taken a liking to Rundle, and entrusted the minister with teaching his children.{{sfn|Rundle|1977|p=xliii}}

Father [[Pierre-Jean De Smet]] spent the winter of 1845-46 at Fort Edmonton having traveled and explored from [[Oregon Country]] to meet the natives of the [[Rocky Mountains]].

In 1852, the [[Oblate]] missionary [[Albert Lacombe]] first visited Fort Edmonton. With Rundle having trouble controlling the department in 1848, Lacombe easily took up residence in the former Methodist chapel. Lacombe took pity on the fur trade labourers, opining that, "during the summer months, [Hudson's Bay labourers' toil] was as hard as that of the African slave.".{{sfn|Goyette|Roemmich|2004|p=59}} He found little sympathy for the workers from John Rowand or the HBC clerks. The following year, Lacombe moved to [[Lac Ste. Anne County|Lac St. Anne]], but had a new [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] chapel constructed in the fort in 1857 (but did not dwell there); this chapel lasted nearly twenty years before being moved outside of the fort.

A Methodist follow-up to Robert Rundle, Reverend [[Thomas Woolsey]], was dispatched to Edmonton in 1852. His arrival in the fort coincided with Lacombe's residency in the former Methodist chapel, a discovery which distressed Woolsey. Conflicts and private frustrations with Catholic missionaries, and failures to convert Catholics to Protestantism, marked Woolsey's twelve-year residence at the fort.

In 1854, the mission St. Joachim was officially founded in turn at Fort-des-Praires (Fort Edmonton).