Description of Historic Place

The Battle River Lutheran Church is a one and one-half storey asymmetrical wood frame church building with a combined steeple and entranceway on its southeast corner situated in a rural setting twelve miles north of the Village of Chauvin.

Heritage Value

The heritage value the Battle River Lutheran Church derives from its association with Norwegian settlement and their development of religious institutions in Alberta during the settlement period, its representation of picturesque church architecture and its prominence as a landmark.

Norwegian settlement of Alberta was derived in large measure from Minnesota, a major destination point for immigrants coming to North America directly from Norway or via Ontario and Quebec in the 1850s through to the 1880s. The majority of the Norwegian settlers who located north of Chauvin in the Battle River area came from Fosston, Minnesota. The link to Minnesota was maintained with the organization of the Battle River Congregation. Pastor K.O. Hildahl who had ministered too many of the pioneers when they lived in Minnesota guided the settlers in the creation in 1909 of the Battle River Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church with head offices in Minneapolis. Services were conducted in Norwegian until 1924 when the increasingly diverse backgrounds of the settlers prompted a shift to the use of English. The church was in active use by the same congregation until 1983.

Its representation of picturesque church architecture includes its asymmetrical plan, classically proportioned steeple the positioning of which is similar to the Akron plan and the use of carpenter gothic windows.

Its size, color and prominent position on a hill have made it an enduring landmark to the settlement the Battle River area which began at the turn of the century.

Source: Municipal District of Wainwright No. 61 (File: 1407)

Character-Defining Elements

Exterior
- form, scale and massing;
- the use of wood in the construction of walls, steeple, as well as frames for all windows and vents on the steeple;
- use of wood shingles as a roof covering on the main building and the steeple as well as the top section of the steeple;
- carpenter gothic windows on all facades;
- brick chimney;
- the wooden entranceway to the basement;
- the rectangular window and the carpenter gothic window over the entranceway which is incorporated into the steeple;
- the four carpenter gothic vents on the second storey of the steeple;
- weather vane on the top of the steeple.

Interior
- columns and molding of partial partition separating sanctuary from the nave.