Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, Surreyਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਸਿੱਖ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ, ਸਰੀ

Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara is the Sikh temple at 7050 120 Street, on Scott Road at the Surrey and Delta border in British Columbia, one of the largest gurdwaras in North America. Founded in 1973 for about 200 Sikh families, it opened its present building in 1981 and counted 37,000 members in 2004. It is one of the entries in our guide to Gurdwaras in Canada.

What is Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, Surrey?

Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara is a working Sikh place of worship run by the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple Society of Delta Surrey. A gurdwara, literally the doorway to the Guru, centres on the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture honoured as the eternal Guru, and its langar hall serves a free vegetarian meal to everyone who comes. The temple stands in Newton, on the Surrey side of Scott Road, in a city where the 2021 census counted 154,415 Sikhs, 27.45 percent of Surrey's population, the largest Sikh concentration of any Canadian city.

History: founded in North Delta in 1973

The gurdwara was established in North Delta in 1973 by the Guru Nanak Sikh Society to serve the roughly 200 Sikh families then living in the Surrey and Delta area, and the society itself opened that year. The society bought land on the Surrey and Delta border in 1973, but the new building did not rise quickly. According to the account summarised on Wikipedia, Delta's city government, facing opposition to the gurdwara from non-Sikhs in Delta, asked the society to build on the Surrey side of its property instead, and in exchange gave the site access to the Delta sewage system.

The current facility opened in 1981 along Scott Road. By 1988 it was the largest gurdwara building in Greater Vancouver, and by about the same year it probably had the second largest membership in the region, after the Khalsa Diwan Society in Vancouver. Growth continued with Surrey itself: as the city's Sikh population climbed from 3,950 in 1981 to more than 150,000 by 2021, the Scott Road temple grew into one of the continent's largest congregations, recorded at 37,000 members in 2004. A British Columbia Court of Appeal judgment in 2012, in a dispute over a society meeting, put the membership at more than 30,000 and described it simply as a large organisation.

Architecture: the white building with the steel dome

The building is easy to recognise in photographs: a broad white, stepped complex on Scott Road, topped by a large open steel onion dome that catches the sun, with the tall orange Nishan Sahib flagpole in front of it. On the facade, the words One God flank the Ik Onkar symbol, the opening words of the Guru Granth Sahib declaring one universal creator. Inside are the darbar hall where the scripture is honoured, the langar hall and kitchen, and the rooms of a busy community institution whose own charitable objects include daily langar for all, classes in Sikh history, philosophy and language, scholarships for students, and religious festivals for the Sikh community of Surrey, Delta and White Rock.

Why does this gurdwara matter to Surrey and Delta?

It matters because it was the first permanent Sikh home for two fast growing suburbs at a time when their Sikh families numbered only in the hundreds, and it has grown with them for fifty years. Surrey and Delta together are now one of the largest Sikh population centres outside Punjab, and the Scott Road temple sits at their shared border, drawing its sangat from both cities. Its official site still introduces it the same way: a gurdwara established on the Surrey Delta border on Scott Road, and an integral part of the growth of Surrey and Delta's local Sikh sangat.

A difficult recent chapter

On 18 June 2023 the temple's president, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who had led the gurdwara since 2019, was shot and killed in its parking lot. Canada's prime minister later said Canadian intelligence was pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between the killing and agents of the Indian government. India's government denied involvement. The case became a major diplomatic dispute between Canada and India, and it is recorded here only in those neutral terms: a killing at a place of worship, and two governments' stated positions, which remain in dispute.

How do you visit Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara?

You visit at 7050 120 Street, Surrey, BC V3W 3M8, on Scott Road at the Delta border, and the gurdwara can be reached on 604 598 1300 through its official site, gnsg.org. Everyone is welcome, Sikh or not, and no booking or payment is needed. Cover your head, remove your shoes, sit in the darbar hall for as long as you wish, and stay for langar, the free vegetarian meal served to all. The biggest gatherings fall on Vaisakhi in April and on Guru Nanak Dev Ji's Gurpurab in the autumn, when Scott Road fills with the sangat of Surrey and Delta.