Two Churches Trochu Alberta

Two Churches Trochu Alberta: a look at historic St Anne of the Prairies Catholic and St John’s Lutheran, the latter doubling as a home, in this charming little community. We are no strangers to challenging conditions and this outing was on one most frigid days in all of early 2022. Sitting around is never an option but when extremities go numb as they did it may have been the better choice in hindsight. Damn, it was bone-chilling…oops, we’re talking about churches…sorry…we meant darn.

These two buildings sit within a couple blocks of each other on the south side of town. Unbeknownst to us, there was a special treat waiting for us on this adventure. Regular readers of this website know we have a strange obsession for tiny vintage fibreglass camping trailers (Bolers and their kin). We’re into historic churches too, if that isn’t already obvious, so this day we get both. What’s the odds?

Trochu is close to a hundred and fifty clicks northeast of Calgary and home to about a thousand people. The community dates back to the early 1910s and came on the scene with the arrival of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (present day Canadian National).

1) St Anne of the Prairies (simply St Anne’s or sometimes misspelled as Ann’s) was completed in 1927 and under construction for something close to a decade. It was built in fits and starts as money came in and we see this sort of thing happened all the time back in the old days. It’s mentioned that services were held in basement for many years, while waiting for the upper stories to be completed.

It’s a rather large church for a town this size and we bet half the local population could fit inside in a pinch. There’s a cemetery connected to St Anne’s, but it’s outside the community.

An earlier wood-framed church stood on this same property for a number of years, but they soon outgrew it.

St Anne was mother of Mary, so maternal grandmother to Jesus and features in Catholicism but not necessarily in many other Christian denominations.

2) St John’s Lutheran Church goes back to the early 1910s and their earliest building once sat out in the county. In 1923 it was moved into town and remained in use for a few years before being replaced by the current structure on the same site. As was once common to Lutheran Churches, services might be held in German as often as English, especially so in the early days.

Later in the 2010s declining membership forced its closure and since then it’s been converted into a home. Outwardly, it’s not all that different from when built and how nice that it could be repurposed rather than torn down, as was one possible outcome I guess.

It’s such a charming and photogenic building, but too bad for all those power lines. They seem to suck the life out of photos.

The Boler was a pleasant surprise, and while not terribly uncommon, they’re not exactly everywhere either. Just finding one is an event (we average about 50-60 a year, plus an equal number of Boler-like trailers), but one parked out of back an historic church is made a special treat. That’s some aligning of the stars going on there.

St John’s is just down from the tracks, and we hoped a a train would show. We’re obsessed with railway stuff too, but you already knew that and what trifecta it would have been had it happened. I guess we’re not that well connected.

St John was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in the New Testament and brother of St James.

Saints Anne and John aren’t the only churches in Trochu, but from a historic standpoint, the most interesting and we hope you enjoyed the photos. We loved capturing them even if the cold weather was murder on both us and the equipment. When we say cold, think Winnipeg deep freeze and anyone from there will know exactly what that means.

These buildings were explored while we were doing some historic work that weekend just down the road in Three Hills and you know, when you have an hour to burn, it might as well be put to use. Except next time we’ll wait till it’s warmer.

Know more about the town (new tab): Trochu Alberta.

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Date of Adventure: February, 2022.
Location(s): Trochu, AB.
Article references and thanks: Remember When – The History of Trochu and District and the Town of Trochu.

St Anne of the Prairies, Trochu Alberta.

Constructed in the 1920s.

A beautiful structure.

Photographed one cold and crisp winter’s day.

It’s a good size.

Nearby, St John’s is now someone’s home.

It’s also from the 1920s.

Boler!

Just down from the tracks.