Facts and Statistics

Vancouver Island was one of several locations considered for a western settlement site for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a letter to Church members in 1845, Church President Brigham Young mentioned the island as "one of many good locations for settlement on the Pacific." The letter sparked a petition by Church members in England to Queen Victoria to support them in settling the island. However, the petition was ignored, and no Latter-day Saint immigrants settled on the island until 1875. That year, William Francis and Maria Judson Copley and their three children settled at Shawigan. The first Church convert on the island was Anthony Maitland Stenhouse, a member of the legislative assembly of British Columbia who chose to resign from the assembly and be baptized in 1887.

Establishing the Church on the mainland began in 1904 when the president of the Northwest States Mission visited Vancouver City and located a Latter-day Saint family there. A meeting with 12 members in attendance was held in 1909 and a small congregation was organized in 1911. The congregation became ward (a larger congregation) in 1938 and was included in the Seattle Stake (similar to a diocese). By 1960, Latter-day Saint wards expanded to two in Vancouver, plus congregations in North Shore, New Westminister, Fleetwood, Richmond, White Rock, Langley, and Chilliwack.

Joseph Smith, Sr. and his son, Don Carlos (the father and brother of Joseph Smith Jr.) preached in several Canadian towns and hamlets north of the St. Lawrence River in September 1830. The Canadian settlements were only a day or two’s journey from Palmyra, New York, and Kirtland, Ohio, and several converts were eager to share their new religion with relatives north of the border.

Between 1830 and 1850, some 2,500 Canadians joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, mostly in Upper Canada but also in the southern English-speaking townships of Lower Canada (Quebec), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.

The first known Latter-day Saints to enter what is now Alberta were Simeon F. Allen and his son Heber S. Allen of Hyrum, Utah, who contracted work in 1883 on the Canadian Pacific Railroad between Medicine Hat and Calgary. They were joined by other saints from Utah working on the contract.
 
A few years later in 1886, Cache Stake President Charles O. Card received permission from Church President John Taylor to investigate colonizing opportunities in southwestern Canada.
Today, more than 182,000 Latter-day Saints are spread throughout 480 congregations in Canada.