<P> In the 1830s, French Canadian Catholic employees of the Hudson's Bay Company petitioned the bishop in their native Quebec to send priests to what was then known as the Oregon Country . François Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers were sent to the area and arrived at Fort Vancouver in 1838 . Blanchet and Demers held Masses in various buildings within the fort, and Catholics often had to share worship space with Protestants, an arrangement that did not please either group . In 1845 Blanchet gained the company's permission to build a new church just outside the fort, and the wooden building was dedicated as St. James Church on May 30, 1846 . </P> <P> In July 1846, the Vatican established three Catholic dioceses in the Oregon Country: Oregon City, Vancouver Island, and Walla Walla . Augustin - Magloire Blanchet, François Blanchet's younger brother, was appointed bishop of Walla Walla . The Walla Walla diocese was abandoned shortly after, in the wake of the Whitman massacre; however, on May 31, 1850, the Vatican under Pope Pius IX established the Diocese of Nesqually, with Augustin Blanchet as its bishop . Blanchet chose to have his new diocese headquartered in Vancouver, and chose the existing St. James Church as his cathedral . The church was formally dedicated as St. James Cathedral on January 23, 1851 . </P> <P> Blanchet retired in 1879 and his successor, Egidius Junger, set out to build a new cathedral in Vancouver . Construction began in 1884 and the 145 - metre (476 ft) - long cathedral was dedicated as St. James Cathedral the following year . The original church, meanwhile, burned down in 1889 . </P> <P> Junger's successor, Edward John O'Dea, realized that Vancouver was no longer the economic and population center it once was . In 1903, O'Dea transferred the episcopal see of the Diocese of Nisqually to Seattle and immediately set out to build a new cathedral there . The diocese was officially renamed the Diocese of Seattle in September 1907, and the present - day St. James Cathedral in Seattle was dedicated in December of that year . St. James Cathedral in Vancouver, meanwhile, was reverted to a parish church, as it had been before the diocese's establishment, and remains a parish church to the present day . </P>

Proto-cathedral of st. james the greater vancouver wa