Ted and Joan Anderson arrived in Whitehorse, Canada, and were named Knights of Bahá'u'lláh for the Yukon. The first local spiritual assembly was elected in 1959. When they left in 1972 there were some 400 Bahá'ís in the area. [BW13:457; KoB255263; LynnEchvarria2008p57; CBN No46 Nov 1953 p3]
• The Andersons established an organization called the Indian Advancement Association for Indigenous people, which later was changed to the Native Brotherhood and Yukon Association of Non-status Indians. Many of the early Bahá'ís in the Yukon were Indigenous elders. In addition to contributing to the growth and development of the Bahá'í community in the Yukon, these Bahá'ís also significantly contributed to the revitalization of the Indigenous cultures and language of the Yukon. [NSA website]

The Guardian...urges you to concentrate on the native populations it is for that reason that we have opened new countries to the Faith. After all, Europeans, Americans, etc., can become Bahá'ís in their homeland. We have entered new fields all over the world to bring the light of divine guidance to the native population, who have thus far been deprived of the spiritual teachings of Bahá'u'lláh. May you be confirmed with this teaching effort among the natives. The great foal would be an assembly in Whitehorse, made up of native Bahá's or at least the majority natives..

It was through the participation of the Bahá'í in the Yukon Indian Advancement Association that many of the early Native people became Bahá'ís. [ibid p92]

The formation of the first Local Spiritual Assembly in the Yukon in Whitehorse. [CBN No 113 June 1959 p10]
• For a photo see CBN No 117 October 1959 p1. Those elected were: Lorne Murphy, Mrs Georgie Hughes, Jerry Brda, Joan Anderson, Erna Henckel, Margaret Brda, Ted Anderson, Ruth Cunliffe, and Glen Hughes.
• At the Jackson Lake Summer School it was resolved to double their numbers by the 3rd annual summer school to be held in September 1960. New Tlingit Bahá'í Sally Jackson proposed that every Bahá'í in the Yukon recite three special prayers each day, the The Tablet of Ahmad the Long Obligatory Prayer and the prayer for Canada. By the time of the summer school they had enrolled eleven new believers and four days later, the twelfth new member, Joseph Smith, the first Tutchone Bahá'í also enrolled. [Native Conversion, Native Identity: An Oral History of the Bahá'í Faith among First Nations People in the Southern Central Yukon Territory, Canada by Carolyn Patterson Sawin p91-92]
• In January 1961 a travel teacher from Alaska, newly declared believer Tlingit Jim Walton, himself a fluent Tlingit speaker was able to introduce a number of First Nations people to the Faith. By the 21st of the month there were 36 new believers for a total of 55 in at least eight localities, Whitehorse, Camp Takhini, Carcross, Marsh Lake, Teslin, Aishihik, Carmacks and Whitehorse Flats, a Native village near Whitehorse. [ibid p94]

The passing of Raymond Theodore (Ted) Anderson (b. 5 August 1924 Mount Horb, WN) in Innisfail, AB. [Find a grave]

He earned his BA and two master's degrees in Oregon and Chicago where he became a Bahá'í. Ted met his wife Joan Storie at the Bahá'í House of Worship in Chicago. They married in 1951 and pioneered to Whitehorse in 1953 where they earned the title, Knights of Bahá'u'lláh. During their time in the Yukon they were adopted by the Tlingit First Nations of Carcross-Tagish. In 1965 Ted was appointed as an Auxiliary Board Member for Alaska by Zikrullah Khadem and served in that capacity along with Howard Brown.

Ted and Joanie relocated to Red Deer, Alberta in 1972 and Joanie passed away in 2000. [Bahaipedia; CBN 410 p5; Find a grave]

• See mention of the Andersons in A New Skin for an Old Drum: Changing Contexts of Yukon Aboriginal Bahá'í Storytelling by Lynn Echevarria.
• See as well The Yukon Bahá'is: Establishing an Archive of Historical Materials and First Nations Life Histories by Lynn Echevarria.