Banner, Sword, and Shield

Canadian Mormon history books are few and far between, in part because there are so few members in Canada and part because most of the historical work on Church history is done in the USA.  In fact most of the work that has been done have been folk tale like personal histories which while somewhat useful have to be taken with a large measure of salt.

So it was nice to find a book which included American and Canadian academics talking about the early history of Canada and Mormons.  B.Y. Card, who edited The diaries of Charles Ora Card: The Canadian years, 1886-1903 is one of the editors of this volume.  The book, called The Mormon Presence in Canada, was published in 1990 and details an overview of the Mormon exodus from eastern Canada in the 1830s and their return to southern Alberta area in the 1880s and the aftermath of the settlement.  
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The lack of proper authority which had been plaguing the American Jews for some time became a serious issue in various communities.  In 1846 there was only a handful of Rabbis who had arrived to fill in the gaps of leadership.  Yet it was not enough to truly provide an overall protection and instruction for the community.  So arguments over what is Kosher and what is not, dissatisfaction and outright distrust of the leadership in communities led to dramatic shifts in Jewish thinking.  No longer did Jews want the leadership dictating on every issue.  It had become so bad that in some cases physical altercations would occur over the content of the prayer books.  It was a land of confusion.
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