When the Methodist missionary Thomas Crosby arrived in Port Simpson in northwestern British Columbia in 1874, he did so at the invitation of the Tsimshian people. Earlier contact with the Anglican missionary William Duncan had convinced them that, although many aspects of his mi…
These fascinating memoirs of Father Nicolas Coccola, a Corsican-born Oblatean who arrived in British Columbia in 1880, reveal the complexity of the work carried out by ordinary missionary priests.
Beginning with his arrival in B.C. in 1880, Father Coccola worked as a missionary for 63 years. After a brief posting to the Kamloops, Shuswap, and Nicola Valley Indian bands, Coccola spent 18 years as a missionary to the Kutenai before being transferred, in 1905, to Stuart Lake…
