In 1896 Bishop Ridley (of the Anglican Diocese of Caledonia) arrived after his travels up the Stikine River with the first miners on their way to the Klondyke. After he returned he looked for someone to carry out missionary work with the miners and Tahltans.

It was Reverent F.M.T. Palgrave who took this work on in 1897 by establishing a mission at Tahltan village. Palgrave's mandate was to protect the Tahltan people from the debaucheries of the miners and to convert them to Christianity. This wasn't his only work, though. Palgrave stayed for five years, and in this time he attempted to record Tahltan language and grammar, as well as made a detailed census of the Tahltans. Palgrave listed the Tahltans living in the village by name, their population sitting at about 225.

After Palgrave's term was over, T.P.W. Thorman arrived in 1901 to continue work which included building a mission house and church which still stand today. By the end of 1903, Thorman had baptised 50 Tahltans and changed the traditional method of cremating the dead to burial. Due to lack of funds, though, the mission closed, Thorman's work ended, and he returned to England.

He was quickly replaced by a Presbyterian medical missionary named Rev. Dr. F. Inglis in 1903. Inglis was sent to Telegraph Creek and a government elementary school was opened. However, since few Tahltans were living in Telegraph Creek at that time the school and medical services were aimed primarily at the non-native population.

In 1910 the Thormans returned to Tahltan village and opened a day school with a grant from the Federal Government. 15 Children attended the first summer. In 1912 Thorman's son Fred took over the mission and ended up losing government support for the school because he complained about not having enough students.

During this time the Tahltans became aware of rumours that the British Columbia Government had claimed all land outside of Federal Reserves as Crown Land. The Tahltans joined other tribes in B.C. in the Indian Rights Movement, and in October 1910 a formal "Declaration of the Tahltan Tribe" was signed by Chief Nanok and eighty other tribal members. This meant that the Tahltans claimed rights over their traditional territories which they had defended through wars and were by no means willing to give up without proper compensation. James Teit who was a noted ethnographer helped form "Friends of the Indians" and acted as an agent for the Allied Tribes in B.C.. Teit tried to work as a liaison between the Tahltans and southern interior groups and helped draft the 1910 Declaration. The Thormans complained that land claims were hindering their missionary work with the Tahltans.

The Tahltan mission was run on donations until 1952 by two of Thorman's sons. After that it closed.

Sylvia Albright notes that "Underlying the Christian rituals and environment in which they lived at Tahltan village, the basic elements of Tahltan culture and beliefs persisted and remained strong."

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