St. John’s Anglican Church was the first proper church built for a small community of Scottish settlers that had settled in the Red River Colony in 1813. After arriving, it would take time to obtain the resources necessary to construct a church.

It was only in 1820, when Reverend John West arrived that construction of St. John’s Anglican Church began. There would be no grand gothic church – only a modest log structure that doubled as the community school. In 1826, the first church was washed away by a massive flood. Replaced with a larger stone church in 1833, that would become a cathedral before it was damaged by the flood of 1852. A decade later, it was replaced in 1862. The parish would outgrow, and then abandon the building by 1913.

The cathedral standing today opened in 1923, incorporating the 1862 oak pulpit and brass eagle lectern. The vaulted ceiling soars above the pulpit, nicely framing the stained-glass windows looking over the pews.

Like many churches of the time, St. John’s is Gothic Revival in style. Windows bear pointed arches, and the buildings entrances are recessed into the stone walls. The church tower is crenellated, a borrowed aspect from medieval battlements that were purely ornamental in style.