Opening the Great West : Experiences of a Missionary in 1875-76

John McDougall (1842-1917) was a Methodist missionary who - like his father, George McDougall - served in Canada’s North-West in the 1800s. McDougall ascended to a Superintendent position in the Church’s Indian Missions branch in his mid-30s, remaining a major voice in Indigenous-settler relations into the early 1900s. After his death, McDougall’s papers were donated to the Glenbow-Alberta Institute (now, Glenbow Museum). This volume reprints memoirs of McDougall’s work from the summer of 1875 through the summer of 1876. McDougall recounts major events in the North-West relating to Methodist missions (his father’s death) and Indigenous life (the signing of Treaty 6). Besides describing missionary work amongst First Nations groups, the volume depicts changing authority in the region as the North-West Mounted Police and the federal government's influences overshadowed that of the Hudson’s Bay Company.