Caughnawaga Mission / Mission of St. Francis Xavier National Historic Site of Canada

• its location in the semi-urban setting of Kahnawake, Quebec;
• its setting within the walls of Fort St-Louis National Historic Site of Canada, on the banks of the St. Lawrence Seaway;
• the spatial relationship between the various components of the site, their massing, heights, and profiles;
• the integrity of any surviving or as yet unidentified archaeological remains which may be found within the site in their original placement and extent;
• the viewscapes from the site across the St. Lawrence Seaway;

Key elements that contribute to the heritage character of the Saint François Xavier Church include:

• its location at the far east end of the site;
• its cruciform shape with a square tower on the main façade;
• its exterior construction of neatly-dressed large, square stone blocks, as well as the hammer-dressed, randomly coursed stonework of the tower;
• the octagonal belfry featuring a broached roof, round headed openings, and a steeple with a flared base and weathercock;
• its steeply pitched gable roof with bell-cast eaves, adorned with a statue set in a niche;
• the various types of openings, including round-headed windows with fan-light heads and sashes with narrow panes at the sides, rectangular tower windows, and a doorway with a high ellipse with a simple fan;
• the interior features of the church including the elaborately-painted altar, reredos and statuary, the conventional bench-style pews with scroll ends, and the ceiling painting from 1925.

Key elements that contribute to the heritage character of the old presbytery, the west wing, and the corridor include:

• their large, one-and-a-half-storey massing typical of 17th- and 18th-century vernacular Quebec buildings, topped with a shingled hip roof with bell-cast curves;
• their stone construction;
• the main exterior features, including the gabled dormers, the exterior doors with semi-circular panel-heads, and the twelve-paned casement windows;
• any remaining interior features, including exposed stonework, an assortment of original or early interior woodwork and hardware, fireplaces, elaborate architraves with bolection moulds, doors with late-17th century or early-18th century panelling and panelled overdoors, armoires with lap doors and ornamental hinges;
• the collections of pre-1760 documents, original records and account books.

Key elements that contribute to the heritage character of the museum and sacristy include:

• their location adjacent to the old presbytery and the corridor connecting the presbytery to the church;
• the fieldstone exterior construction of the museum, with vestiges of old roughcast clinging to its eaves;
• the collections of early religious art.