Markerville Lutheran Church shares a proud and intriguing history (photo gallery)

MARKERVILLE — In 1906, the small Icelandic community here decided they needed a church.

Able-bodied local farmers picked up their hammers, saws, chisels and other tools, rolled up their sleeves and set to work on Markerville Lutheran Church.

The sandstone foundation was quarried and hauled from the Red Deer River in the community named after it. Timber for the frame, walls and eye-catching arched ceiling came from Innisfail.

When opened in the spring of 1907, the picturesque house of worship and Alberta’s only Icelandic Lutheran church became the centrepiece for the community. It drew its congregation from almost-forgotten communities like Tindastoll and Solheima, and from as far as Burnt Lake and Red Deer, almost 100 km of rutted dirt roads away.

“That would have been a long haul,” marvels Donna Nelson, president of the Stephan G. Stephansson Icelandic Society.

Her great-grandfather and grandfather were among the local landowners who turned their farm-honed crafting skills to the job of church building. That partly explains why Nelson gets so much satisfaction from being one of a dedicated group of volunteers who spent four years restoring the local landmark.

The job began with paperwork in 2007. Society members applied for, and were granted, provincial historical designation for the small steepled church in the middle of what was in its day a bustling farm community.

Provincial and Red Deer County grants followed. Persistent efforts by society members paid off with more than $130,000 in grants from the county and Alberta government. Local fundraising efforts gathered more than $50,000 for the cause and other Icelandic groups in Calgary and Edmonton contributed.

The small committee in charge of restoration had no small task before it. The original sandstone foundations had stood up well, but a century’s wear and tear had taken their toll.

“The floor was starting to bend, so we knew we had to start with the foundation,” says Nelson, who was a member of the restoration committee. “It’s amazing that it lasted that long.”

To build a new foundation, the whole church had to be jacked up and shifted more than its length to the north. Workers then built new foundations and the church was hauled back into its original position in 2009. A new furnace was installed in the basement — at least the third heating system the church had seen since the original oil-fueled furnace sat in the middle of one wall to take the edge off the winter chill.

“There was all kinds of repair work,” said Nelson.

“It had to be repaired in several places.”

Among the jobs was repairing damage caused by a devastating hail storm in 2006 that shattered every stained glass window on the west side, blasting shards of glass clear across the church to the opposite wall.

Broken pieces were later fashioned into two new decorative windows by artisans from Sylvan Lake and Innisfail and the windows now take pride of place near the main entrance.

The hailstorm also ripped up and destroyed many shingles, which had to be replaced.

New stairs and a handicapped accessible entrance were created, and extensive landscaping done outside.

Inside the church, seating had to be replaced. Sometime in the 1940s, the church acquired fold-down movie theatre seats from the showhouse in Innisfail. While real conversation pieces, the rows of seating were losing the battle with time and many were beyond repair.

New pews have now replaced them, but a single row of the theatre seats remains, taking pride of place in the front row.

Keeping the seats was just one of the many little acts of preservation encouraged by provincial historical experts.

For instance, to retain the character of the original building, the original sandstone foundations were sliced into thinner stones and formed into a facade over the new foundations.

Even a decades-old caraganas hedge running down the east side of the church was deemed a piece of its past that must be preserved. And a chimney that once served the first heating system, but hasn’t been used in decades, was painstakingly restored. To cap off the project, the church was repainted inside and out.

Last May, the church was rededicated in a special ceremony led by Rev. John Yoos, who had led worship there in the 1950s through to 1963, when the last regular service was held. Yoos could still rhyme off the names of those who attended his first services, said Nelson.

The first reverend to preach at the church was Rev. Petur Hjalmsson.

“He was only here a few years and there was a little dissension and a lack of money,” said Nelson. Despite that, Hjalmsson would remain in the community for another 25 years, still the man to go to for weddings, funerals and baptisms.

“He met the spiritual needs of the community on an as-needed basis.”

Various ministers came and went over the following decades and the church served other denominations as well, such as Presbyterians. But as the community shrank, attendance dropped and after regular services stopped, the church was only used for special services such as Christmas and Easter.

Lately, there has been a growing interest in using the church for weddings, to the enthusiasm of the society. A nearby church hall is ideally suited for receptions and the income will help with upkeep.

pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com