Gur Sikh Temple Abbotsford

Who: Sikh pioneers of the Fraser Valley, mostly mill and farm workers who had come from Punjab from 1905, acting through the Khalsa Diwan Society. Sunder Singh Thandi and Arjan Singh bought the site, about an acre on a hill beside the Mill Lake sawmill, where around fifty Sikh men worked. Bhai Balwant Singh and Bhai Ram Singh Dhuleta laid the foundation stone.

What: The Gur Sikh Temple, a gurdwara, was built by the community over several years. The Society's own history says work began in 1908, while the federal register gives 1910 to 1912. It was completed in 1911 and formally opened on 26 February 1912. Men carried timber up the hill from the mill, and the lumber was donated by the Tretheway family's Abbotsford Lumber Company. The building is a wood-frame hall with a false front and a gabled roof. The prayer room for Guru Granth Sahib was upstairs, and the langar kitchen and dining hall were below. The temple gave new arrivals meals, lodging and contacts.

Where: 33089 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, British Columbia, on a knoll between the Clearbrook settlement and downtown.

Why it mattered: Canada's register calls it the only surviving gurdwara from the pioneer phase of Sikh immigration, and the oldest surviving Sikh temple in North America. In its first decades it was a centre for the community's fight against legislated racism in labour, immigration and citizenship law. Sikhs were disenfranchised in 1907, and the fight to win the vote back lasted until 1947. The Society's history also records the community's support for the Komagata Maru passengers in 1914. In 1918 a 70-foot Nishan Sahib flagpole was erected, and it was taken down in 1957 when the highway crowded the site.

Parks Canada says the temple was designated a National Historic Site for being the oldest surviving example of the temples that played a religious, social and political role in early Sikh immigration. It adds that the building's openness to people of all castes, creeds and backgrounds carries religious meaning. Prime Minister Jean Chretien announced the designation on 31 July 2002, and the federal listing gives 1 November 2002. A larger gurdwara was built across the road in 1983, and the old building was kept as a symbol of the pioneers. The Society restored it from 2003, and it reopened on 1 April 2007.