Gur Sikh Temple, Abbotsfordਗੁਰ ਸਿੱਖ ਟੈਂਪਲ, ਐਬਟਸਫੋਰਡ

The Gur Sikh Temple is the Sikh temple at 33089 South Fraser Way in Abbotsford, British Columbia, the oldest existing gurdwara in North America and a National Historic Site of Canada. Opened on 26 February 1911 by Sikh pioneers who carried lumber on their backs to build it, it keeps its prayer hall above its langar hall and now houses the Sikh Heritage Museum. It is one of the entries in our guide to Gurdwaras in Canada.

What is the Gur Sikh Temple?

The Gur Sikh Temple, also called the Abbotsford Sikh Temple, is a working Sikh place of worship as well as a protected heritage building. A gurdwara, literally the doorway to the Guru, centres on the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture honoured as the eternal Guru, and serves a free vegetarian meal, langar, to everyone who comes. This temple is the only gurdwara outside India and Pakistan that is designated a national historic site. It was the third gurdwara built in Canada: the first, at Golden in 1905, burned down in 1926, and the second, Vancouver's 2nd Avenue temple of 1908, was demolished in 1970 when its society moved to Ross Street in South Vancouver.

History: lumber carried up a hill in 1911

The first Sikh pioneers reached the Abbotsford area in 1905 and worked on farms and in the lumber industry. They began planning their own temple in 1908. Once a property on a hill had been acquired, the settlers carried lumber from a local mill on their backs up the hill to construct the gurdwara, a detail Parks Canada still records on the temple's plaque. It was raised under the Khalsa Diwan Society of Vancouver, the pioneer society founded in 1906 that built British Columbia's first temples.

When the gurdwara opened on 26 February 1911, Sikhs and non-Sikhs from across British Columbia attended the ceremony, and a local newspaper reported on the event. From the outside the two floor building looked like the wooden houses of a frontier town, and the features and decoration typical of Sikh architecture were found inside. The building was extended twice, in 1932 and again in the 1960s, as the congregation grew.

Architecture: a Canadian frontier building with a Sikh heart

Parks Canada describes a simple, rectangular, gable roofed building of wood frame construction clad in wood siding, standing on a one acre property at the crest of a hill in the centre of Abbotsford. Its street facing false front is typical of Canadian commercial vernacular architecture of the period, and a verandah runs along three sides of the building on the second floor. Inside, the plan follows Sikh tradition: the prayer hall, the Sukh Aasan room where the Guru Granth Sahib rests, and the granthi's quarters are on the second level, with the communal kitchen and dining area on the first level. The four entrance doors carry a religious meaning, symbolising openness to all, regardless of caste, creed or colour.

Why is the Gur Sikh Temple a National Historic Site?

The temple was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2002 because it is the oldest surviving example of the temples that played a crucial religious, social and political role in the pioneer phase of Sikh immigration to North America, because it embodies both the fundamental beliefs of the Sikhs and their early immigrant experience in Canada, and because its form adapts Sikh traditions to the Canadian context. Prime Minister Jean Chretien took part in the designation ceremony on 26 July 2002. The temple had belonged to the Khalsa Diwan Society of Vancouver until 1975, when it was transferred to the local Abbotsford society, whose members wanted greater autonomy. In 1983 a new, much larger temple was built on the opposite side of the road, and the 1911 building was kept, restored and honoured rather than replaced.

The Sikh Heritage Museum and the centenary

The old temple reopened in 2007 after a complete renovation. For its centenary in 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper inaugurated the Sikh Heritage Museum on the ground floor of the temple, telling the pioneers' story through photographs and objects in the room where langar was once the centre of pioneer life. In May 2017 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the museum's Canada 150 exhibit, one sign of how a small wooden temple built by mill workers has become a place where Canada tells its own immigration story back to itself.

How do you visit the Gur Sikh Temple?

You visit at 33089 South Fraser Way, on its hill in the centre of Abbotsford in the Lower Fraser Valley, and no booking or payment is needed. The Sikh Heritage Museum, on the first floor, has free entrance and is open from 9 am to 5 pm, seven days a week, with interpretive signs around the site for a self guided walking tour. The South Asian Studies Institute offers guided group tours for schools, camps and community groups, booked through [email protected] or 604-854-4547. Cover your head and remove your shoes before entering the prayer hall upstairs, and allow time to read the plaque, which sums the temple up: built by determined Sikh pioneers in 1911, and still a sacred symbol of their community today.