Christ Church National Historic Site

Consecrated in 1861, this small Anglican church is the oldest on the BC mainland still standing on its original foundation

Christ Church sits on a small rise near the town centre, a plain board-and-batten Anglican church that looks like it was built to last — because it was. Consecrated in 1861 by the Church of England and constructed with the help of Royal Engineers from the Columbia Detachment, it has been in continuous use ever since. No other church on the BC mainland can claim to be both this old and still standing on its original site.

The interior is modest: wooden pews, exposed timber framing, and a few memorial plaques that trace the history of the congregation through the gold rush era and beyond. The surrounding churchyard has graves dating from the 1860s. Parks Canada designated it a National Historic Site in 1966. The church is still an active Anglican parish and holds regular services; if you visit outside service times, the building is often unlocked during daylight hours.

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A story
The church was built in 1861 by Royal Engineers stationed at Fort Hope during the Fraser River Gold Rush — the same engineers who surveyed the Cariboo Wagon Road. The surrounding area was, at that moment, one of the most chaotic places in the world: tens of thousands of prospectors were pushing through Hope on their way north to the goldfields, and the Engineers were trying to impose some semblance of British order on the chaos. The church they built has outlasted the gold rush, the fort, and most of what was built around it.