Figure 1. The Diocese of Saint-Boniface, 1854.
The centennial of Saint-Jean-Baptiste mission at Île-à-la-Crosse occasioned the publication of the first book-length history of a Catholic mission in western Canada—Germain Lesage’s Capitale d’une solitude (1946). Commissioned by the Vicariate Apostolic of Keewatin, the book presented a collective portrait of the priests, nuns, and lay brothers who had staffed Saint-Jean-Baptiste over the previous century. Its avowed aim was to inspire missionary vocations by introducing Catholic readers to paragons of service, devotion, and charity: “Légeard, the long-suffering one, faithful servant of the Sacred Heart”; “Rapet, the kind-hearted one”; “Pénard, the philosopher, historian, and linguist”; “Dubé, a father to the schoolchildren”; “Labelle, the jack of all trades”; “Bowes, the builder”; “Agnès, Dandurand, Nadeau, Eugénie, model mothers with boundless hearts.”1 Saint-Jean-Baptiste thus served as a showcase in which to display the diverse talents and qualities required for the extension of God’s kingdom on earth. It represented the ideal harmonization of these talents and qualities, a harmonization that gave rise to a “Christian city” within a vast expanse of pagan wilderness. The isolation—or “solitude”—of this city underscored the sacrifice of its founding citizens and reminded readers that the work of evangelization was far from complete, for beyond loomed a hinterland where the light of Christ had still to penetrate.2
While arguably effective as a rhetorical strategy, Lesage’s emphasis on isolation obscures the historical connectedness of Saint-Jean-Baptiste to regional, national, and global processes. The mission belonged to a network that conveyed people, information, funds, and freight over vast distances. This network operated under ecclesiastical aegis and existed for the fulfillment of Christ’s mandate to evangelize the nations.3 It was sustained—and gradually extended—through collaborative interaction between lower clergy in the mission field, local superiors, regional prelates, and international administrative and financial bodies. This chapter examines the role of Saint-Jean-Baptiste within this network during the latter half of the nineteenth century, charting the mission’s rise as a central node (1846–66) and its decline into marginality (1867–98). In the process, the chapter speaks to a broader transformation of the Catholic mission network in which Saint-Jean-Baptiste was embedded.
The founding of Saint-Jean-Baptiste represented a critical step in the extension of the Catholic mission network into Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory.4 Since his installation as the first resident bishop in the region in 1822, Joseph-Norbert Provencher had confined his personnel to the environs of his administrative headquarters at Saint-Boniface in the Red River Colony.5 The principal reason for this confinement was the HBC’s ban on missionary activity in its chartered territory beyond the colony—a subject that will receive further consideration in the next chapter. This ban was lifted in 1839 when the governor and committee of the HBC invited the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society to establish posts at Norway House, Moose Factory, Cumberland House, and Fort Edmonton. The following year, the Company permitted the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) to deploy a catechist to The Pas on the Saskatchewan River.6 Determined to curb the spread of evangelical Protestantism in the interior, Provencher adopted a program of expansion beyond the confines of the Red River Colony. On 20 April 1842, he dispatched Jean-Baptiste Thibault—a thirty-two-year-old secular priest from Lévis, Lower Canada—on horseback across the western plain in search of a strategic location for a missionary beachhead.7 Thibault established his residence seventy-five kilometres west of Fort Edmonton on the southern shore of Lac Sainte-Anne.8 From there, he reconnoitred eastward along the North Saskatchewan River between Fort Edmonton and Fort Carlton.9
Thibault’s attention shifted northward after his visit to Fort Pitt in the winter of 1843–44. There he encountered “a few sauvages from Île-à-la-Crosse” who expressed keen interest in receiving his ministrations.10 Yet due to pressing obligations at Lac Sainte-Anne and Saint-Boniface, Thibault was unable to travel to Île-à-la-Crosse until the following year.11 He arrived by canoe on 9 May 1845, and was warmly received by seventy-three-year-old Roderick McKenzie—Chief Factor of the English River District at Île-à-la-Crosse.12 Over the next two weeks, Thibault visited approximately eighty “Montagnais” families living within the vicinity of the HBC fort.13 He taught them to recite prayers in French and marvelled at their eagerness for further instruction. “All of them, from the youngest to the oldest, show an incredible zeal to learn to serve God,” he reported to Provencher on 24 May. “Although my work is sometimes very hard, I must admit that it is greatly softened by the sense of consolation I feel among sauvages who are so docile and so eager to know the way to heaven.”14 Envisaging mass conversion, Thibault urged his bishop to deploy missionaries to Île-à-la-Crosse without delay.15 On 26 May, he took leave of his catechumens and continued northward to Portage La Loche.16
Thibault’s report persuaded Provencher to establish a permanent mission at Île-à-la-Crosse. In April 1846, the bishop commissioned the two youngest priests in his jurisdiction to lay the foundations of the mission—twenty-seven-year-old Louis-François Laflèche (a secular priest from Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Lower Canada) and twenty-two-year-old Alexandre-Antonin Taché (an Oblate from Rivière-du-Loup, Lower Canada).17 The latter commission marked a departure from Provencher’s exclusive reliance on secular clergy to undertake missionary work.18 The bishop believed that the launch of missions sauvages beyond Red River required a degree of discipline, cohesion, and financial stability that only a religious community could provide.19 He had consequently appealed to the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in May 1844. Having only recently established an institutional presence in Canada—at Longueuil (1842) and Bytown (1844)—the Oblates did not have sufficient numbers to deploy a hefty contingent into Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory. Nevertheless, Josepheugène-Bruno Guigues—the superior of Oblates in Canada—received instructions from the Oblate General Administration to choose two of his personnel from Longueuil to serve under Provencher.20 Mindful of the HBC’s aversion to “foreign priests,” Guigues narrowed his choice to the few Canadian recruits in his otherwise entirely French community.21 Taché seemed an obvious candidate for, despite his extreme youth, he had already displayed an aptitude for teaching and an earnest desire to serve in the west.22 He reached Saint-Boniface in the company of his new superior, Pierre Aubert, on 25 August 1845. The two Oblates spent the following months ministering to the local Catholic population until Taché received his assignment to Île-à-la-Crosse.23
On 8 July 1846, Taché and Laflèche boarded HBC barges at Fort Garry and set out upon the tortuous waterways that conveyed the Portage La Loche Brigade to Île-à-la-Crosse each summer.24 Having obtained free passage through an agreement between Provencher and George Simpson—governor of the HBC’s trading territories in British North America—the young missionaries descended the Red River into Lake Winnipeg and sailed northward to the source of the Nelson River. After a brief sojourn at Norway House, they crossed the northern end of the lake to Grand Rapids and proceeded up the Saskatchewan River to Cumberland House. They then ascended the rapids of the Sturgeon-Weir and crossed over Frog Portage to the English River (known today as the Churchill River). On 10 September, Taché and Laflèche reached Île-à-la-Crosse after travelling 1,600 kilometres in just over two months.25 With winter steadily approaching, the missionaries postponed constructing a residence and accepted McKenzie’s offer of temporary room and board at the HBC fort—a cluster of houses and stores enclosed within a palisade. There they spent five months studying Cree and Chipewyan under the tutelage of McKenzie’s resident interpreter.26
In spring, Taché and Laflèche began physical work on the mission and entrusted their labours to the patronage of Saint John the Baptist.27 They settled into a crude log cabin that McKenzie had offered them as a gesture of goodwill. Located approximately one and a half kilometres south of the HBC fort, the cabin stood on the long-abandoned site of the NWC fort near the tip of the peninsula. It measured eleven by seven metres and had yet to be caulked, such that the elements found their way into every nook and cranny. The missionaries therefore spent two weeks filling chinks with mud and hay, then plastering the interior with a mixture of earth and ash.28 At one end of the cabin, Laflèche built sleeping quarters and an alcove for the sacrament. The remainder of the “maison-omnibus” served as kitchen, refectory, parlour, confessional, choir, and nave.29 These functions tended to intersect and to blend awkwardly, as Oblate missionary Vital-Justin Grandin later recalled in his description of Masses officiated by Taché in 1848:
The missionaries celebrated Mass in the same apartment in which they cooked their meals, boiling their fish in a cauldron suspended over the chimney fire…. So, after communion, the celebrant would turn toward the congregation to say “Dominus vobiscum” [“The Lord be with you”] only to see his surplice-clad cantor gripping the cauldron with the help of a rag and swirling it around to prevent its contents from burning, all the while offering the congregational response [“Et cum spiritu tuo,” meaning “And with your spirit”].… Father Laflèche thus fused the rather disparate roles of cantor and cook while Father Taché did his best to keep a straight face.30
In order to lessen their reliance on the provisioning services of the HBC, Taché and Laflèche cleared a garden plot and sowed potatoes, which grew well in the sandy soil of Île-à-la-Crosse.31 They also learned to fish in the lake where, according to Taché, “great hauls of fish crowd into our nets.”32 Their efforts to consolidate the mission were redoubled with the arrival of another Oblate in July 1848. Hailing from the Vaucluse in southeastern France, twenty-five-year-old Henri Faraud had served in the Red River Colony for a year before Provencher assigned him to Île-à-la-Crosse.33 A skilled carpenter and woodworker, Faraud spent several months renovating the “maison-omnibus” by rebuilding its roof, panelling its interior, installing locks on its doors, and adorning its alcove with a wooden tabernacle and candlesticks.34
While still in the initial phases of consolidation, Saint-Jean-Baptiste served as a launching pad for Catholic missionary activity further afield. Taché and Laflèche reached an agreement whereby the former would undertake a series of excursions to outlying HBC posts while the latter—whose mobility was becoming increasingly restricted by rheumatism—would remain at Île-à-la-Crosse.35 Thus, in late February 1847, Taché procured snowshoes, a sled, harnesses, and four emaciated dogs from McKenzie. He then ventured 165 kilometres southward to the HBC post at Green Lake, where he baptized a small party of Cree speakers. Taché returned to Île-à-la-Crosse on 5 March, only to embark four days later on a much longer expedition to the post at Reindeer Lake—a journey of approximately 550 kilometres to the northeast.36 He travelled in the company of four HBC servants whom McKenzie had instructed to guide the young missionary. After sixteen days of arduous sledding, Taché reached Reindeer Lake and took up residence in the home of HBC clerk Charles Thomas. Over the next two months, he evangelized forty Cree- and Chipewyan-speaking families living in the vicinity of the post. Taché returned to Île-à-la-Crosse by canoe on 15 June.37 Two months later, he departed for Fort Chipewyan on the shore of Lake Athabasca—approximately 715 kilometres northwest of Île-à-la-Crosse. Travelling by canoe in the company of “two sauvage guides,” Taché traversed Lac Île-à-la-Crosse and headed northwestward across Clear and Buffalo Lakes, ascended La Loche River and entered Lac La Loche. He disembarked at the southeastern end of the portage, walked its twenty-kilometre trail, and re-embarked by canoe down the Clearwater and Athabasca Rivers.38 Taché arrived at Fort Chipewyan on 2 September and was received as a guest of Chief Trader Francis Ermatinger.39 The young missionary devoted the next three and a half weeks to evangelizing local families and reportedly performed 194 baptisms.40 He left Fort Chipewyan by canoe on 27 September and reached Île-à-la-Crosse on 15 October—four days before ice sealed the lakes and rivers.41
Over the course of this intensive tour, Taché had laid the foundations of a satellite mission at each HBC post on his itinerary—namely Green Lake, Reindeer Lake, Portage La Loche, and Fort Chipewyan. These posts were subsequently visited on a semi-regular basis by missionaries from Saint-Jean-Baptiste.42 Taché returned by dogsled to Green Lake in early January and to Reindeer Lake in early March 1848. In late August, he returned by canoe to Portage La Loche en route to Fort Chipewyan.43 At Ermatinger’s request, he prolonged his visit to the latter post by several weeks until the departure of the winter mail party on 2 January 1849.44 This prolongation enabled Taché to grasp the strategic value of Fort Chipewyan as a potential staging point for missionary expansion to Fond-du-Lac on the eastern end of Lake Athabasca and Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake. The task of consolidating this important position fell to Faraud, who consequently left Île-à-la-Crosse in late August and travelled by canoe to Fort Chipewyan to build a permanent chapel and residence there.45 Meanwhile, the addition of two new Oblates to the personnel of Saint-Jean-Baptiste resulted in more regular visits to the other satellite missions. Shortly after their arrival at Île-à-la-Crosse in July 1850, twenty-five-year-old Jean Tissot (from the French department of Haute-Savoie) and twenty-six-year-old Augustin Maisonneuve (from the department of Ardèche) relieved Taché of his ministry at Green Lake, Reindeer Lake, and Portage La Loche.46 Their presence provided much-needed reinforcement after Laflèche’s rheumatism compelled him to quit Saint-Jean-Baptiste in June 1849.47
As Saint-Jean-Baptiste extended its influence beyond Île-à-la-Crosse, it required increasing financial support from its chief benefactor—l’Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi. Founded in 1822 by a group of laypeople in Lyons, this society endeavoured to assist Catholic missions throughout the world by prayer and funding. To this end, it drew on hundreds of thousands of associates from virtually every diocese in France. These associates made weekly contributions to a general fund that was managed by two central councils— one in Lyons, the other in Paris. Monies from this fund were then disbursed to individual bishops, vicars, and prefects apostolic according to their stated needs.48 Provencher was among the earliest beneficiaries. Since 1828, he had received an annual allocation from l’Œuvre for the undertaking of missionary activity in the vicinity of Saint-Boniface.49 As the Catholic mission network expanded northwestward in the mid-1840s, Provencher repeatedly requested that this allocation be increased in order to cover mounting travel and provisioning expenses.50 His requests were denied on the grounds that civil unrest in France—culminating in the revolution of 1848—was hindering the administration of l’Œuvre and reducing donations from its associates.51 Provencher’s allocation was consequently frozen at its 1845–46 level, and all of his nascent missions beyond Red River faced the prospect of closure. In January 1849, Taché and Faraud received orders from Saint-Boniface to restrict their ministry to the immediate vicinity of Saint-Jean-Baptiste and to abandon all satellite missions until l’Œuvre could provide sufficient funding for their maintenance.52
This funding was ultimately secured through the intercession of the Oblate General Administration in Marseilles.53 In the aftermath of Laflèche’s departure, the Oblate General Administration took an increasingly active interest in Saint-Jean-Baptiste and its satellite missions, as these were now staffed entirely by members of the congregation.54 Bishop Charles-Joseph-Eugène de Mazenod of Marseilles—founder and first Superior General of the Oblates— personally recommended these missions to l’Œuvre and affirmed that they were worthy of financial support. In February 1850, Mazenod informed the central councils of Lyons and Paris that these missions were the unique charge of his congregation and that they were maintained by the selfless dedication of his “beloved sons … who live in a frozen land and so far apart from one another that we must incur enormous expense to provision them. God alone can fathom the suffering that these men endure for His glory and for the salvation of those poor, abandoned souls.”55 Through Mazenod’s commendation, the Oblate missions of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory obtained a permanent annual allocation that was entirely separate from the one granted to Provencher.56 To ensure the regular replenishment and periodic augmentation of this fund, Mazenod instructed his missionaries to send letters and reports to the central councils of Lyons and Paris. These texts could then be published in Les Annales de la Propagation de la Foi— the official organ of l’Œuvre—and circulated among the French Catholic reading public in order to elicit general interest, financial support, and vocations.57
Informing Mazenod’s advocacy was a realization of the growing importance of Saint-Jean-Baptiste within the broader Oblate apostolate. The mission was quickly becoming the de facto administrative headquarters of Catholic missionary activity in Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory. Its rise to prominence was accelerated in November 1849, when Provencher recommended to the Canadian bishops that Taché be nominated as his coadjutor with the right of future succession.58 Mazenod welcomed this nomination, as it endowed his congregation with jurisdiction over a vast mission territory.59 When Rome ratified the nomination and appointed Taché Bishop of Arath in partibus infidelium—a titular see—on 14 June 1850, Mazenod ordered him to accept the appointment and insisted on personally consecrating the young bishop. Obediently, Taché left Saint-Jean-Baptiste in June 1851 and travelled to France, where he was consecrated by Mazenod in the cathedral of Viviers on 23 November 1851.60 Besides conferring episcopal ordination on Taché, Mazenod appointed him vicar of missions (i.e., Oblate superior) of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory, thereby detaching the region from the Oblate Province of Canada.61 Taché returned to Saint-Jean-Baptiste on 11 September 1852 and undertook the administration of his vicariate from there.62 He remained at the mission after succeeding Provencher as Bishop of Saint-Boniface upon the latter’s death on 7 June 1853. Entrusting diocesan affairs to Thibault and Laflèche, Taché postponed relocating to Saint-Boniface until he was canonically compelled to take possession of his cathedral in November 1854.63 After his enthronement, Taché returned frequently to Saint-Jean-Baptiste and continued supervising its consolidation over the next two years.64 Yet his perambulation between Saint-Boniface and Île-à-la-Crosse soon presented serious logistical problems, thus prompting him to write to the Oblate General Administration in June 1856 to request the appointment of an Oblate coadjutor with permanent residence at Saint-Jean-Baptiste.65
Acceding to Taché’s request, the Oblate General Administration narrowed its choice of candidates to Oblates residing at Saint-Jean-Baptiste and its satellite missions in January 1857. Four newcomers had lately reinforced this contingent. The first was thirty-year-old Henri Grollier (from the department of Hérault), who had accompanied Taché on his return voyage from France in 1852.66 Grollier had spent only a week at Saint-Jean-Baptiste before continuing northward to assist Faraud in consolidating Nativité (Fort Chipweyan) and Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs (Fond-du-Lac) missions.67 The second newcomer was twenty-eight-year-old Valentin Végréville (from the department of Mayenne), who had arrived at Saint-Jean-Baptiste in mid-July 1853 and who had subsequently established Saint-Raphaël mission at Cold Lake—approximately 180 kilometres southwest of Île-à-la-Crosse.68 Thirty-three-year-old René Rémas (from the department of Mayenne) was the third newcomer. After a brief posting at Saint-Jean-Baptiste in October 1853, Rémas had ventured 320 kilometres southwestward to lay the foundations of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires mission at Lac La Biche.69 The most recent arrival was twenty-seven-year-old Vital-Justin Grandin (from the department of Mayenne). Grandin had passed through Saint-Jean-Baptiste in July 1855 en route to la Nativité and Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs, where he assisted Faraud and Grollier.70 Despite having comparatively little experience in the mission field, Grandin was deemed dignissimus inter dignos—worthiest among worthies—by the Oblate General Administration and appointed Bishop of Satala in partibus infidelium by the Holy See on 10 December 1857.71 He initially refused the appointment on account of his youth, frail constitution, and pronounced speech impediment. Yet Mazenod considered the matter non-negotiable and summoned Grandin to Marseilles to receive consecration. The chastened appointee left Saint-Jean-Baptiste in late August 1859 and was consecrated by Mazenod on 30 November. Grandin was installed as coadjutor upon his return to Saint-Jean-Baptiste on 4 October 1860, effectively elevating Île-à-la-Crosse to the status of episcopal see.72
While assuming an increasingly important administrative role in the Catholic apostolate, Saint-Jean-Baptiste experienced a dramatic material evolution. Impelling this evolution were Oblate lay brothers—unordained members of the congregation charged with the temporal affairs of the mission.73 In July 1849, Saint-Jean-Baptiste welcomed the first Oblate lay brother ever deployed into Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory—thirty-one-year-old Louis Dubé (from Saint-André de Kamouraska, Lower Canada).74 Upon his arrival at the mission, Dubé assumed the duties of gardener, fisherman, housekeeper, and cook. His confrères soon delighted at the service of appetizers and desserts at mealtimes and drolly nicknamed their residence “château Saint-Jean” in acknowledgement of Dubé’s refining influence.75 The lay brother sowed new crops in the garden, and in autumn 1852 he harvested three bushels of barley as well as a substantial yield of oats, peas, onions, rutabaga, and broad beans.76 He procured cattle from the HBC fort and was tending two cows, eight heifers, two bulls, and five calves by January 1853. This livestock enabled Dubé to supplement his confrères’ diet with cheese, butter, and occasionally beef.77 A second lay brother—twenty-five-year-old Patrick Bowes (from Kingston, Upper Canada)—arrived at Saint-Jean-Baptiste on 16 July 1855.78 An accomplished carpenter and woodworker, Bowes constructed a wooden church measuring eighteen metres in length and featuring a steeple, a sculptured altar, and twelve glass windows along its nave.79 After completing the structure in spring 1856, Bowes travelled to Lac La Biche, where he applied his carpentry skills to the consolidation of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. He returned to Saint-Jean-Baptiste in July 1858 and began construction of a two-storeyed residence for the local mission personnel.80 A third lay brother—twenty-four-year-old Louis Boisramé (from the department of Mayenne)—arrived at the mission on 4 October 1860 to assist Dubé and Bowes in fishing, gardening, tending livestock, and chopping and hauling firewood.81 Yet while these lay brothers brought material improvement to Saint-Jean-Baptiste, their numbers remained too limited to release ordained Oblates from the duty of manual labour.82 Hence, in April 1861, Végréville wrote to Taché complaining that his days were spent gardening or chopping firewood rather than in prayerful contemplation or in the study of Cree and Chipewyan.83 The following month, Grandin reported that all Oblates at Saint-Jean-Baptiste—lay brothers and ordained priests alike—were preoccupied with gardening and with building a cowshed.84 In hopes of entrenching a clear division between temporal and spiritual ministries, Grandin appealed for vocations to the Oblate brotherhood in a letter published in Les Annales de la Propagation de la Foi in 1863: “For our consolation and for the betterment of our work, may the Lord increase the number of good brothers who assist us. Their mission is a humble one, but it is very beautiful and very important.”85
Though short of Oblate manpower, Saint-Jean-Baptiste was enhanced by the arrival of three Sisters of Charity of Montreal—known colloquially as Grey Nuns—in autumn 1860.86 Having established an institutional presence at Saint-Boniface sixteen years earlier, the Grey Nuns accepted the invitation of the Oblate General Administration to expand beyond Red River and to establish a daughter convent at Île-à-la-Crosse.87 They agreed to labour gratis pro Deo in the fields of education, health care, and social work, stipulating only that the Oblates provide them with food, clothing, and ownership of a local residence.88 Accordingly, two of their members—twenty-seven-year-old Sister Agnès (née Marie-Rose Caron from Louiseville, Lower Canada) and twenty-two-year-old Sister Philomène Boucher (from Saint-Rémi, Lower Canada)—were dispatched to Île-à-la-Crosse from the motherhouse in Montreal on 4 June 1860.89 Agnès and Boucher were joined at Saint-Boniface by twenty-three-year-old Sister Pepin (née Marie-Anne Lachance from La Malbaie, Lower Canada).90 The three young nuns travelled under the escort of Grandin and twenty-seven-year-old Jean Séguin (from the department of Puy-de-Dôme), a recently ordained Oblate assigned to Saint-Jean-Baptiste.91 After an arduous ten-week journey along the HBC transport system, the party reached Île-à-la-Crosse on 4 October.92 The nuns took up residence in a two-storeyed structure lately completed by Dubé and Bowes. Measuring eleven by seven metres, the structure contained a refectory, a kitchen, a dormitory, and a common room. It was blessed on the feast day of Saint Bruno (6 October) and was consequently entrusted to his celestial patronage.93 “Le couvent Saint-Bruno” (Saint Bruno Convent) was delineated as a feminine space into which Oblates were to consign duties and chores that required “more experienced hands and maternal care.”94 Hence, Dubé hauled cauldrons, kettles, spits, pans, dishes, cups, and cutlery to the convent and relinquished housekeeping responsibilities to its newly installed residents.95 Grandin, Végréville, and Faraud ceased administering homeopathic remedies at Saint-Jean-Baptiste and referred cases of physical affliction to the convent.96 Faraud himself became a regular patient at Saint-Bruno as his worsening rheumatism occasioned long periods of bed rest and constant medical attention between 1860 and 1863.97
Beyond tending to the alimentary and medical needs of mission personnel, the Grey Nuns engaged directly in the work of evangelization by providing local children with a Catholic education—an undertaking that will receive detailed consideration in Chapter 3. On 25 November 1860, the nuns opened a convent boarding school for nine girls and six boys.98 These schoolchildren were divided into two cohorts—a pensionnat supérieur (comprising children of HBC officers) and a pensionnat inférieur (comprising children of HBC servants and three orphans).99 The ranks of both pensionnats increased steadily over the following years as the Grey Nuns welcomed children from HBC posts throughout the English River District together with a growing number of orphans and foundlings. Enrolment rose to seventeen in 1862, nineteen in 1863, twenty-two in 1864, twenty-eight in 1865, and thirty in 1866.100 Assembled in the common room at Saint-Bruno, these pupils followed a morning curriculum—consisting of reading, writing, and arithmetic—under Pepin’s tutelage. In the early afternoon, they attended catechism class taught by one of the ordained Oblates of Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Later in the afternoon, the girls received instruction in cooking, cleaning, and sewing from Agnès while the boys learned carpentry, husbandry, and maintenance from Dubé.101 At eight o’clock in the evening, the girls retired to their dormitory at Saint-Bruno and the boys to their dormitory in the Oblate residence, where they remained under Dubé’s supervision.102
The development of a solid and diversified infrastructure at Saint-Jean-Baptiste strengthened the entire network of Catholic missions in Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory. Through their labours at Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Grey Nuns and Oblate lay brothers provided farm produce, clothing, and equipment for missionaries in outlying areas. With assistance from their female pupils, the nuns produced stockpiles of butter, cheese, and berry preserves at Saint-Bruno.103 They made cassocks from coarse wool (obtained at the HBC fort), as well as hats, coats, mittens, trousers, and boots from animal skins.104 The lay brothers kept a store of dried pork, beef, and fish, as well as barrels of potatoes, wheat, oats, barley, onions, and rutabaga. They made fishnets, snowshoes, dogsleds, and harnesses with assistance from male pupils.105 Shortly after his arrival at Saint-Jean-Baptiste in September 1862, forty-five-year-old Joseph Salasse (an Oblate lay brother from the department of Savoie) procured a hand-powered mill from the HBC fort and began grinding flour at the mission.106 Thus, by the early 1860s, Saint-Jean-Baptiste had become sufficiently endowed to serve as a central provisioning depot for a vast territory. The mission outfitted Taché and Grandin on their annual episcopal visits to Portage La Loche, Green Lake, and Cold Lake between 1860 and 1866.107 It also outfitted thirty-year-old Julien Moulin (an ordained Oblate from the department of Ille-et-Vilaine) on his overland expedition from Green Lake to Fort Carlton, where he founded a mission in December 1860. Saint-Jean-Baptiste continued to provision Moulin’s mission throughout the 1860s.108 Concurrently, Saint-Pierre mission (Reindeer Lake) drew many of its supplies from the same source. Appointed resident superior at Saint-Pierre in August 1861, Végréville placed immediate strain on the stores of Saint-Jean-Baptiste by requisitioning foodstuffs, clothing, and equipment for himself and his two subordinates—thirty-one-year-old Alphonse Gasté (an ordained Oblate from the department of Mayenne) and thirty-three-year-old Jean Pérréard (an Oblate lay brother from the department of the Rhône).109 Until his reassignment in April 1864, Végréville dispatched Gasté and Pérréard to Saint-Jean-Baptiste periodically to restock on essential supplies.110 For their part, Oblates in the Athabasca and Mackenzie River basins (northeast of Portage La Loche) also drew on the stores of Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Although detached from the jurisdiction of the Bishop and Coadjutor Bishop of Saint-Boniface by the canonical erection of the Vicariate Apostolic of Athabasca-Mackenzie (13 May 1862), these Oblates remained dependent on provisions from Saint-Jean-Baptiste.111 Hence, while visiting Saint-Jean-Baptiste en route to la Nativité in late July 1862, twenty-three-year-old Émile Petitot (an ordained Oblate from the department of Côte-d’Or) and twenty-two-year-old Émile Grouard (an ordained Oblate from the department of Sarthe) procured butter, flour, potatoes, and dried meat for themselves and their confrères in the north.112
In addition to producing supplies for outlying missions, Saint-Jean-Baptiste served as a point of transshipment for manufactured goods and liturgical articles sent from Saint-Boniface. The mission was able to perform this function because of its strategic location on the main route of HBC barges plying between Red River and Portage La Loche.113 In accordance with an agreement brokered between HBC Governor George Simpson and Taché in 1853, the HBC delivered freight directly to Saint-Jean-Baptiste each July or August.114 This freight consisted of items that had been ordered the previous year by the Oblate superior of Saint-Jean-Baptiste and his confrères in outlying posts. These missionaries sent their orders to Taché, who subsequently arranged for the shipment of specified items from Great Britain and France by way of York Factory (on Hudson Bay) and Norway House (on Lake Winnipeg). Once received at the episcopal palace in Saint-Boniface, the items were inventoried, packaged, and loaded aboard HBC barges bound for Portage La Loche.115 At Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Oblate lay brothers unloaded the items and checked them against an accompanying copy of the inventory. Pieces addressed to the Vicariate Apostolic of Athabasca-Mackenzie were reloaded and shipped north to Portage La Loche, thence hauled to the Clearwater River and shipped up the Athabasca River.116 Pieces addressed to Reindeer Lake and Fort Carlton were held in storage at Saint-Jean-Baptiste until they were claimed and removed by Oblates stationed in those areas.117 Pieces addressed to Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation (Portage La Loche), Saint-Raphaël (Cold Lake), and Saint-Julien (Green Lake) also were stored at Saint-Jean-Baptiste and were carried to their respective destinations by Oblates on pastoral visits. Because these missions were served directly from Saint-Jean-Baptiste, they drew from a common repository of liturgical articles. Oblates lugged vestments, chalices, ciboria, patens, hosts, and flagons of wine to these missions for the celebration of Mass, then returned these items to storage at Saint-Jean-Baptiste.118
As a further consequence of its location on an HBC thoroughfare, Saint-Jean-Baptiste served as the communications hub between Saint-Boniface and the far-flung missions of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territories. Ordained Oblates stationed in the Saskatchewan, English, Athabasca, and Mackenzie River basins were required to send written reports to Saint-Jean-Baptiste at least twice a year. Each Oblate was expected to provide detailed information on the progress of the faith among his neophytes and to comment on his own spiritual and physical condition. He was then to transmit his report to Saint-Jean-Baptiste by the courier system that served the HBC posts of the English River and Athabasca Districts in the winter and summer. Alternatively, he could entrust his report to a fellow Oblate or to an HBC servant travelling to Île-à-la-Crosse.119 Once all of the reports had been received at Saint-Jean-Baptiste, they were read by Grandin or—in the event of his absence—by his deputy.120 Grandin or his deputy then prepared a general report on the progress of the apostolate to Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory. Administrative records—such as inventories, receipts, and lists of necessary provisions—were appended to the general report. So too were documents marked for forwarding to France—principally reports to the Oblate General Administration and letters to l’Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi.121 The completed dossier left Saint-Jean-Baptiste by barge in late August or by dogsled in early January.122 After its delivery to the episcopal palace in Saint-Boniface, the dossier was scrutinized by Taché and/or by his counsellor, Joseph Lestanc (an ordained Oblate from the department of Finistère).123 Documents destined for France were removed and inserted into Taché’s correspondence with the Oblate General Administration and l’Œuvre.124 The remainder of the dossier provided information upon which Taché ordered supplies for distant posts, deployed reinforcements into the mission field, and issued instructions to his coadjutor. In his written response to Grandin, Taché included a list of supplies bound for Saint-Jean-Baptiste the following summer, directives on supervising missionaries, and administrative news from France. His letter left Saint-Boniface by courier in December or by barge in June.125 After reaching Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the letter was read by Grandin and its contents were relayed to missionaries in outlying posts by circular.126
The combination of its strategic location and its diversified infrastructure made Saint-Jean-Baptiste the central meeting place for Oblates serving in Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territories. Beginning in 1860, the mission hosted an annual retreat in October. This event drew Oblates— ordained priests and lay brothers alike—from distant missions to spend eight days in communal worship and reflection.127 Although intended primarily as a devotional and reflective exercise, the retreat also served an important administrative function, as it facilitated interpersonal communication between Oblates. It enabled superiors to obtain first-hand information on particular missions while allowing subordinates to receive clarification on matters of discipline and organization. Hence, in 1860, Taché availed himself of the retreat at Saint-Jean-Baptiste to consult with his personnel about the missions of the Athabasca and Mackenzie River basins. It was during this consultation that he and Grandin resolved to petition the Holy See to detach the northern missions from the Diocese of Saint-Boniface and to consign them to a new vicariate administered by a resident évêque-roi (bishop-king)—an office to which they subsequently nominated Faraud.128 Four years later, the retreat at Saint-Jean-Baptiste was attended by the Oblate Superior General’s delegate, thirty-eight-year-old Florent Vandenberghe (an ordained Oblate from Belgium).129 Over the course of the retreat, Vandenberghe collected testimony from Taché, Grandin, Moulin, Gasté, Dubé, and Pérréard in order to prepare a comprehensive report on missions sauvages for the Oblate General Administration.130
Thus, by the mid-1860s, Saint-Jean-Baptiste had come to occupy a pivotal role in the Catholic apostolate to Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory. In addition to serving as the administrative headquarters of the Coadjutor Bishop of Saint-Boniface, the mission had become a centre of education and health care, a provisioning depot, a point of transshipment, and a rallying place for Oblates dispersed throughout the region. As a corollary of its strategic importance, Saint-Jean-Baptiste had assumed an exalted position in the consciousness of Oblates. They referred lyrically to the mission as the “cradle of bishops,” as four prelates had begun their missionary careers there: Taché, Bishop of Saint-Boniface; Grandin, Bishop of Satala in partibus infidelium and Coadjutor Bishop of Saint-Boniface; Faraud, Bishop of Anemour in partibus infidelium and Vicar-Apostolic of Athabasca-Mackenzie (consecrated on 30 November 1863); and Laflèche, Bishop of Anthedon in partibus infidelium and Coadjutor Bishop of Trois-Rivières (consecrated on 25 February 1867, succeeded to the see on 30 March 1870).131 In his published overview of the Oblate enterprise in Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory—Vingt années de missions dans le Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique (1866)—Taché presented Saint-Jean-Baptiste as the congregation’s crowning achievement. He paid it homage in describing his visit there in autumn 1864:
At the first light of dawn, our canoe entered the lake of Île-à-la-Crosse and soon the immense cross, the soaring steeple, the church building, the entire mission of Saint-Jean-Baptiste reflected the rays of a magnificent September sun. A flood of light spilled upon us, and our soul was filled with the most delightful emotions. There, on the shores of that tranquil lake, on a spot that would enchant many a visitor, stood that establishment which has already done so much good and which will do even more in the future…. From all directions a festive fusillade assured us that our joy and contentment were reciprocated; cheerful schoolchildren greeted us waving small flags…. The Reverend Father Visitor [Vandenberghe], having arrived at Île-à-la-Crosse over a month earlier, awaited us alongside six other Oblates—two bishops, two priests, and two lay brothers. He told us that he could never have imagined finding a mission so complete, a work so perfect, isolated in these woods and lying so far beyond the boundaries of the civilized world. His words brought us great satisfaction.132
To a degree, Taché’s panegyric reflected a sense of individual accomplishment in the mission’s progress. As its co-founder, Taché acknowledged that he felt personally invested in Saint-Jean-Baptiste: “This heart once beat so fervently on that distant shore. This heart has loved it so! And how this body has suffered on that shore, watering it with its sweat! We lived there for ten years and … we once believed that we would breathe our last there. All of this entitles us to call it ad propria [‘our own,’ or ‘our home’ in this context].”133 Yet far from mere self-congratulation, Taché’s panegyric reflected a sentiment that was widespread among his fellow Oblates. Grouard and Petitot had both marvelled at Saint-Jean-Baptiste while passing through in July 1862. In their respective letters to Taché, the former Oblate praised the mission’s scenic charm while the latter praised its ideal strategic positioning.134 Three and a half years later, twenty-nine-year-old Jean-Marie Caër (an ordained Oblate from the department of Finistère) expressed astonishment upon arriving at Saint-Jean-Baptiste. He reported to the Oblate General Administration that the mission emanated “a certain air of civilization that I have not encountered in any other mission since my departure from Saint-Boniface.”135
This sense of collective wonder was short-lived. It perished in the fire that ravaged Saint-Jean-Baptiste on Friday, 1 March 1867.136 While taking their evening meal at Saint-Bruno, Grandin, Caër, Dubé, Bowes, and Boisramé were alerted by a schoolboy that their residence had caught fire. The Oblates rushed from the refectory and proceeded to fight the blaze, but their efforts were thwarted by a southward wind that fanned the flames toward a warehouse stocked with gunpowder. Fearing mass injuries and loss of life, Grandin ordered the mission personnel and schoolchildren to assemble on the frozen lake at a safe distance from the imminent explosion:
We distanced ourselves from the scene of the fire. The sisters, the children, the neighbours—we all just stood there on the ice, condemned to watch the destruction of so much hard work and so many hopes…. We heard something detonate: it was the gunpowder exploding and sending flaming debris in all directions. Fortunately, no one was hurt…. By nine o’clock, all was over, that is to say that everything had been destroyed…. We did not even have a blanket to shield ourselves from the cold of twenty to thirty degrees. The fire had melted the snow, so our feet were soaking and not a single one of us could change shoes.137
Although there were no casualties, the conflagration had claimed the Oblate residence and the schoolboys’ dormitory together with everything inside— bedding, clothing, furniture, and a library that had taken two decades to compile. It had also claimed stores of farm produce, dried meat, manufactured goods, and liturgical articles.138 Left with few alternatives, Grandin installed his four confrères and nineteen schoolboys in a hastily refurbished warehouse and supplied them with blankets borrowed from the HBC fort. Then, after sending orders to Father Julien Moulin to leave Saint-Pierre (Reindeer Lake) and assume temporary direction of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Grandin set off on 15 March to procure emergency provisions and solicit relief funds.139
Grandin’s efforts on behalf of Saint-Jean-Baptiste stretched over a year and drew on an array of benefactors. At Saint-Boniface, he persuaded Taché and Lestanc to reorganize and repackage the annual consignment to the missions of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory so as to provide Saint-Jean-Baptiste with bare essentials. In notifying the Oblate personnel of Saint-Pierre of this measure, Grandin warned of looming shortages throughout the entire mission network: “Monseigneur Taché is going out of his way to alleviate the suffering of the priests and brothers of Île-à-la-Crosse. He is unpacking and repacking all of the bales destined for the other missions to offset losses and relieve the poor victims of the fire.”140 From Saint-Boniface, Grandin travelled to Canada and thence to France, where he appeared in person before the Paris council of l’Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi in October. He informed the council that Saint-Jean-Baptiste had suffered 60,000 francs in damages and was in urgent need of a special allocation.141 After consulting with its counterpart in Lyons, the council advanced Grandin 12,000 francs and promised an additional allocation of 38,080 francs the following year.142 While still in Paris, Grandin appealed for reinforcements from the Oblate General Administration (which had relocated from Marseilles in 1862).143 He consequently obtained four recruits for Saint-Jean-Baptiste: twenty-five-year-old Prosper Légeard (an ordained Oblate from the department of Mayenne); forty-six-year-old François Leriche (an Oblate lay brother from the department of Mayenne); twenty-five-year-old Célestin Guillet (an Oblate lay brother from the department of Mayenne); and twenty-six-year-old Auguste Némoz (an Oblate lay brother from the department of Isère). These recruits accompanied Grandin as he sailed from Brest on 25 April 1868.144
The travellers reached Saint-Jean-Baptiste on 29 August.145 They lent immediate assistance to their confrères, who had been absorbed in reconstruction over the previous year.146 Leriche—a former blacksmith and farrier—set up a forge and wrought hinges, nails, locks, latches, and tools. He also mended pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils from Saint-Bruno.147 Légeard and Némoz assisted Bowes in cutting and planing lumber for the new Oblate residence—a task that was facilitated by Grandin’s procurement of a “sawing machine.”148 Besides relieving Dubé of his responsibility for tending livestock, Guillet began tanning hides and making soap from rendered beef fat.149 Yet even as Saint-Jean-Baptiste underwent renewal, Grandin expressed misgivings about the mission’s ability to resume its multifarious functions. He opined that the mission had sustained too much infrastructural damage to accommodate large numbers of visitors and to continue producing, storing, and transshipping supplies. His principal concern, however, was for the welfare of the resident personnel—half of whom still slept in a cramped, weather-beaten warehouse. Inadequate lodgings and limited food supplies obliged Grandin to consider transferring several of these missionaries elsewhere.150 Doubtful that Saint-Jean-Baptiste could continue serving as his administrative headquarters, Grandin left on 1 October 1868.151
Three weeks later, Grandin took up residence at the mission of Saint-Albert—approximately 640 kilometres southwest of Saint-Jean-Baptiste.152 Founded in January 1861 by Taché and thirty-three-year-old Albert Lacombe (an ordained Oblate from Saint-Sulpice, Lower Canada), Saint-Albert showed strong potential as a base of operations.153 Its location on the Sturgeon River—a tributary of the North Saskatchewan—allowed for relatively easy provisioning from Fort Edmonton. It also provided access to a string of nascent missions along the North Saskatchewan—Saint-Joachim (established in 1860), Saint-Paul-des-Cris (established in 1865), Saint-François-Régis at Fort Pitt (established in 1865), and the mission at Fort Carlton (established in 1860)—as well as overland access to Blackfoot territory in the south.154 Besides its geographical advantages, the mission boasted a diversified infrastructure that included a water gristmill, a large farm, and a school-cum-infirmary staffed by Grey Nuns (established in 1863).155 As Grandin’s place of residence, Saint-Albert became the de facto seat of a new vicariate erected by the Oblate General Administration and consigned to Grandin’s charge on 20 March 1868. This vicariate comprised the northern and western portions of the former Diocese of Saint-Boniface, extending diagonally from the foot of the Rocky Mountains to Hudson Bay. On 22 September 1871, the Holy See recognized Saint-Albert as the administrative centre of this vast territory by elevating the mission to the status of episcopal see and appointing Grandin first Bishop of Saint-Albert.156
Concurrent with its loss of administrative pre-eminence, Saint-Jean-Baptiste ceased functioning as a provisioning depot and a point of transshipment to outlying missions. It was divested of this function in 1868 when the HBC—preparing the transfer of its chartered territory to the Dominion of Canada and seeking to streamline its commercial operations— declined responsibility for the transport of mission freight. Henceforth, mission freight had to be conveyed from Saint-Boniface either by Red River cart along the Carlton Trail or by steamboat along the Saskatchewan River as far as Fort Carlton, Fort Pitt, or Fort Edmonton. From these posts, the freight could be shipped to its destination.157 Grandin and Faraud were compelled to organize this transshipment and to establish supply routes in their respective jurisdictions. On 1 July 1869, the two prelates reached an agreement whereby Faraud would establish his headquarters at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires (Lac La Biche)—a mission that was technically within Grandin’s jurisdiction.158 Notre-Dame-des-Victoires subsequently became the entrepôt of the Vicariate Apostolic of Athabasca-Mackenzie. At his vicarial residence, Faraud received freight transported overland from Fort Pitt and supervised its shipment to the northern missions by way of the Little La Biche River and the Athabasca River.159 Saint-Julien (Green Lake) acquired a similar function in the Diocese of Saint-Albert. This mission became the point of transfer between Fort Carlton and the missions of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation, and Saint-Raphaël.160 Mission freight was transported by cart from Fort Carlton to Saint-Julien, where it was loaded onto barges and shipped north to its destination.161 Thus, by the early 1870s, Saint-Jean-Baptiste had been displaced as the Oblates’ central depot. Contemplating this displacement in a letter to the Oblate General Administration, Légeard noted: “Saint-Jean-Baptiste was once the most important of our establishments in the Northwest, but it will soon be little more than a simple, unremarkable mission sauvage.”162
Mindful of Saint-Jean-Baptiste’s declining role in the Catholic apostolate to the Northwest Territories, Légeard implemented financial and administrative initiatives to prevent the mission from foundering. As resident superior from October 1870 to June 1879, Légeard developed two means of supplementing the mission’s allowance of 10,000 francs per annum—a sum drawn from the annual allocation of l’Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi to the Diocese of Saint-Albert.163 The first was to exploit his contacts with the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary—known colloquially as the Visitation Sisters—in the Diocese of Autun (department of Saône-et-Loire). This female religious order was a leading proponent of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and its convent in Paray-le-Monial drew upwards of 100,000 pilgrims every summer to the site where the Sacred Heart had appeared to the Blessed Marguerite-Marie Alacoque in the 1670s and ’80s.164 Through correspondence with the Visitation Sisters, Légeard obtained clothing, liturgical articles, and devotional tracts as well as monetary donations from devotees of the Sacred Heart. In return, Légeard promoted the devotion to the Sacred Heart and the veneration of the Blessed Marguerite-Marie at Saint-Jean-Baptiste.165 Secondly, Légeard petitioned the Canadian government to subsidize the convent boarding school. He consequently obtained grants of $300 in 1875 and in 1876, but was denied further subvention in 1877 on the grounds that the school was not located within the limits of Treaty Six.166
These pecuniary gains enabled Légeard to effect considerable material improvement at Saint-Jean-Baptiste. In January 1872, he obtained the transfer of Bowes—the self-styled “factotum to the missions”—from Saint-Albert, where the lay brother had served as resident carpenter for the previous two years.167 Bowes reached Saint-Jean-Baptiste on 14 June in the company of twenty-five-year-old Léon Doucet (an ordained Oblate from the department of Loiret).168 With assistance from Doucet and Némoz, Bowes constructed a three-storeyed residence roughcast with lime, sand, and gravel. The residence—lauded by Légeard as “the most beautiful in all the Northwest”—was entrusted to the Grey Nuns and inaugurated as their convent, refectory, and infirmary on 10 August 1874. The Oblates and schoolboys took up residence in the former “couvent Saint-Bruno” after it had been reinsulated by Bowes. The lay brother also constructed a new schoolhouse—Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart)—that opened its doors on 14 September 1874.169 The following spring, Légeard began refurbishing the church with new windows, a bell, external siding, internal wood panelling, and several coats of paint. He also purchased and installed a harmonium to accompany the singing of hymns during Mass.170 Légeard’s extensive renovation campaign was cut tragically short. While drafting plans for an orphanage-cum-hospice in January 1879, the thirty-five-year-old Oblate took ill and was committed to the Grey Nuns’ infirmary, where he died five months later.171 In tribute, the Oblate General Administration commissioned Louis Soullier—Oblate Assistant General—to write Légeard’s biography.172 Soullier eulogized Légeard as a model Oblate whose administrative skill and financial acumen had left a tangible legacy at Saint-Jean-Baptiste: “The traveller who wanders through the district of Île-à-la-Crosse can everywhere see traces of Father Légeard’s fruitful ministry and rare virtues; he can everywhere hear testimonies to the universal and profound reverence that Father Légeard’s memory inspires.”173
Despite having honoured Légeard’s life’s work, the Oblate hierarchy opted to drain his beloved mission of resources and personnel over the following decade. This measure was a response to rapid demographic growth in the southern portion of the Diocese of Saint-Albert. Although Grandin had foreseen Euro-Canadian immigration as an inevitable consequence of the Rupert’s Land transfer (1870), he had not anticipated its scale, its geographic concentration, or its overall impact on his diocese.174 He had only recently established missions in the prairie grasslands—Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix (founded in 1873) near the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers, and its satellite posts on the Siksiká (Blackfoot) reserve at Blackfoot Crossing, the Piikani (Peigan) reserve near the entrance of the Crowsnest Pass, and the Kainai (Blood) reserve between the St. Mary’s and the Belly Rivers (all founded after the signing of Treaty Seven, 1877).175 These missions acquired critical strategic importance when the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the Rocky Mountains in 1883, thereafter delivering a stream of settlers to the prairies and foothills.176 From their southern bases, Oblates scrambled to minister to Catholic newcomers and to lay the foundations of churches, schools, and hospitals. To expedite their efforts, Grandin initiated a southward redeployment of personnel and resources. He justified this decision in a circular to his clergy in 1887, explaining that the south had become “the most important part of my diocese” and that the development of its missionary infrastructure was now his chief priority:
In the part that I consider important, there is now a fairly considerable population; there are at least eight cities and many other sizeable communities. The poor sauvages have been confined to reserves to make room for the whites. There they await their complete destruction, which is happening quickly due to a way of life that is unfamiliar to them and to the general immorality of la civilisation moderne. Thus, in order to save at least their souls and to minister to white newcomers, we must multiply our missions and our schools…. As you can see, dear Fathers, this part of my diocese is indeed the most important part. It is here that the bishop must reside.177
This administrative shift resulted in drastic financial reductions for Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The Diocese of Saint-Albert ceased subsidizing the construction of new buildings and the renovation of old ones at the mission, thus leaving local Oblates to fend for themselves.178 Moreover, the mission’s regular allocation—10,000 francs per annum in the 1870s—was permanently reduced by half and local Oblates were forbidden from making “extraordinary purchases” of “ornaments, statues, stained-glass windows, or anything of the like.”179
Besides its financial constraints, Saint-Jean-Baptiste became chronically understaffed as a result of Grandin’s prioritization of southern missions. Between 1880 and 1887, the bishop withdrew all Oblate lay brothers who had served under Légeard and reassigned them to newer missions in the south.180 In their place, he transferred twenty-six-year-old Félix-Victor Marcilly (an Oblate lay brother from the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle) to Saint-Jean-Baptiste in 1880.181 The following year, the mission received a second Oblate lay brother—twenty-eight-year-old Fabien Labelle (from Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Quebec).182 Grandin consigned the mission to the pastoral care of twenty-five-year-old Joseph Rapet (an ordained Oblate from the department of Var) in July 1881.183 To assist Rapet in his ministry, the bishop appointed twenty-five-year-old Louis Dauphin (an ordained Oblate from the department of Mayenne) in June 1882 and twenty-seven-year-old Jules Teston (an ordained Oblate from the department of Drôme) in January 1884.184 Grandin recognized that this corps was much too small to fulfill its spiritual and material responsibilities, which extended beyond Saint-Jean-Baptiste to include Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation (Portage La Loche) and Saint-Julien (Green Lake) as well as nascent missions at Canoe Lake and Waterhen Lake.185 In February 1884, the bishop acknowledged the need for an additional four Oblates at Saint-Jean-Baptiste and its satellite missions, but maintained that he could not spare the manpower to meet this need.186 The situation worsened when Dauphin was compelled to quit Saint-Jean-Baptiste in September 1886 due to a heart condition.187 His departure left Rapet and Teston heavily overburdened with travel duties and pastoral work. The pair devised a rota whereby Rapet would remain at Saint-Jean-Baptiste while Teston would journey to Saint-Julien by way of Canoe Lake and Waterhen Lake. Upon Teston’s return, Rapet would embark for Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation.188 Although feasible in principle, this arrangement was frequently interrupted by the vicissitudes of mission life. For instance, during epidemic outbreaks in 1886, 1887, and 1889, Rapet and Teston were compelled to undertake simultaneous journeys in order to administer extreme unction in several different places. Saint-Jean-Baptiste was consequently left without ordained clergy for several weeks on end.189
Although conscious of personnel shortages and poverty at Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Grandin could offer only limited succour on account of the recent upheaval of his primary benefactors—the Oblate General Administration and l’Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi. Crisis gripped both organizations in the wake of the French legislative election of 1877 and senate election of 1879. Republican victories in these elections led to the passing of two bills—introduced and championed by Education Minister Jules Ferry—that effectively dissolved all “unauthorized congregations” in March 1880.190 Oblates were among the prohibited communities and were forcibly expelled from seventeen establishments across France, including their general headquarters on rue Saint-Pétersbourg in Paris.191 Concurrently, the proceeds of l’Œuvre decreased as its associates were inundated with appeals from France’s beleaguered congregations.192 These developments had immediate implications for the Diocese of Saint-Albert. As early as December 1880, Grandin bewailed the shortage of funds and recruits that had resulted from events overseas:
The persecution against the Church, which will soon spread throughout Europe and which is an acknowledged fact in France, leaves me more distressed and ashamed than I could possibly say. It afflicts us even here, not only by closing our novitiates and scholasticates, that is to say, our seminaries, but especially by reducing our financial resources. Our benefactors, overwhelmed by a host of charities that they must suddenly support in France, can no longer offer their customary support for my missions…. They tell me: “We are truly sorry, Monseigneur, that we cannot continue helping you. But before spreading the faith abroad, we must do what we can to maintain it at home.” … Nevertheless, our expenses are increasing as our missions multiply and expand…. I really do not know how to deal with so many pressing needs.193
Among the repercussions of this “persecution” was the deferment of Grandin’s administrative scheme for Saint-Jean-Baptiste and its outposts. Since February 1880, the bishop had been planning to divide his diocese and to consign the northeastern missions to a local vicar who would be entitled to new recruits from the Oblate General Administration and to an annual allocation from l’Œuvre. Yet in view of developments in France, Taché and Faraud dissuaded Grandin from pressing for a new vicariate.194 “Circumstances hardly favour your plan … given the state of anarchy that prevails in France,” asserted Faraud in February 1881. “It is difficult to imagine any increases in manpower or money. And that, after all, is the crux of everything for us: no missionaries, no money—no missions.”195 In deference to his fellow prelates, Grandin delayed pursuing the division of his diocese until April 1887, after a moderate republican government had permitted the Oblate General Administration to reoccupy its headquarters in Paris.196 The restored administration granted its approval to Grandin’s proposal and the Vicariate Apostolic of Saskatchewan was canonically erected on 20 January 1891.197
Yet despite Grandin’s hopes, the creation of a new vicariate brought little financial relief or personnel reinforcement to Saint-Jean-Baptiste and its outposts. Although the vicariate did receive an annual allocation from l’Œuvre and a small contingent of missionaries from the Oblate General Administration, these resources were concentrated in Prince Albert, Battleford, and other burgeoning settlements along the North Saskatchewan River.198 After fixing his vicarial residence at Prince Albert in September 1891, forty-three-year-old Albert Pascal (an ordained Oblate from the department of Ardèche) endeavoured to establish parishes in “the fertile and temperate zone of the vicariate” where English-, French-, German-, and Polish-speaking Catholics were immigrating each year.199 This region claimed most of Pascal’s attention while the north—which he described as “a wild country … ill-suited to settlement on account of its severe climate and poor soil”—was left largely as it had been in the final years of Grandin’s administration.200 However, Pascal did attempt to ease the travel burden on Oblates serving at Saint-Jean-Baptiste and its outposts. In July 1892, the vicar assigned resident missionaries to Saint-Julien and to Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation. He entrusted the former post to Teston and the latter to twenty-eight-year-old Jean-Marie Pénard (an ordained Oblate from the department of Morbihan).201 Although this arrangement relieved Rapet of his circuit between Île-à-la-Crosse and Portage La Loche, it also deprived him of an ordained companion and increased his pastoral responsibilities at Saint-Jean-Baptiste.202 Rapet’s workload was compounded by his duty to travel annually to Saint-Julien, Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation, and other posts in order to administer the sacrament of confirmation—normally a prelatic function, but one that Pascal performed with decreasing regularity in the northern missions after 1893.203
Desperate to procure a second priest for Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Rapet and Pénard wrote multiple appeals to Pascal and travelled to his vicarial residence to press their case in March and again in June 1894.204 They eventually persuaded Pascal to send twenty-five-year-old Henri Jouan (an ordained Oblate from the department of Morbihan), who reached Saint-Jean-Baptiste on 31 March 1895.205 Shortly after his arrival, Jouan attempted to launch an itinerant mission along a circuit that ranged from Buffalo Lake in the north to Waterhen Lake in the south.206 This mission proved abortive, however, as Jouan contracted tuberculosis and was committed to the Grey Nuns’ infirmary on 10 June 1896.207 His illness progressed over the following year and he died on 14 September 1897.208 Although anticipating a critical strain on the local ministry as a result of Jouan’s death, Pascal considered himself powerless to forestall the situation due to the restricted number of ordained Oblates at his disposal. The vicar could do little but implore the Oblate General Administration to send him reinforcements: “Dear Father Jouan, in whom we had placed such high hopes, has died at the very beginning of his priestly and apostolic career, leaving us … broken-hearted and inconsolable. And he has yet to be replaced!! His death has left Saint-Jean-Baptiste mission at Île-à-la-Crosse in a state of unimaginable need.”209
As a makeshift remedy, Pascal opted to shuffle the in situ personnel of the northern missions. In the vicar’s estimation, the forty-two-year-old Rapet was no longer a suitable superior for Saint-Jean-Baptiste, as he had grown weary and sullen after seventeen years in that position. Thus, in December 1897, Pascal reassigned him to Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation and consigned Saint-Jean-Baptiste to the younger, more vigorous Pénard. Accordingly, the two Oblates exchanged posts the following month.210 Pénard registered profound trepidation in assuming his new charge. He had been thrust to the helm of a mission that was falling into severe disrepair and that was burdened by a debt of more than 7,000 francs.211 “When I became fully aware of the situation,” he informed the Oblate General Administration, “I found myself sinking into despondancy. I felt like a drowning man, grasping frantically for something to hold on to and finding nothing.”212
Saint-Jean-Baptiste’s rise as a centre of evangelization (1846–66) and gradual relegation to the status of a remote, ramshackle outpost (1867–98) reflected sweeping changes to the Catholic mission network in which it was embedded. In the late 1840s and ’50s, Saint-Jean-Baptiste played a critical role in extending this network beyond the Red River Colony and into Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory. Founded in an HBC trading hub, the mission served as a base of operations from which Oblates branched out along preexisting water and land routes to establish outlying satellite posts. By 1860, Saint-Jean-Baptiste had generated several far-flung missions and served as the central node through which personnel, information, funds, and freight were conveyed to these missions. Because of its centrality in the expanding network, Saint-Jean-Baptiste emerged as the administrative headquarters of the Coadjutor Bishop of Saint-Boniface, as well as a centre of education and health care, a major provisioning depot, and a gathering place for Oblates dispersed throughout the region.
After the mid-1860s, however, Saint-Jean-Baptiste was shaken by a series of crises emanating from different parts of the mission network. Locally, the fire of 1867 weakened the physical infrastructure and compromised the administrative capacity of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, thus precipitating the transfer of the Coadjutor Bishop of Saint-Boniface to the more westerly mission of Saint-Albert. The fire sent reverberations throughout the network by forcing a temporary concentration of resources and manpower on the burnt-out mission. When the HBC overhauled its transport system in the late 1860s and 1870s, the southern portion of the network came under strain as Oblates scrambled to establish transshipment centres along the Saskatchewan River and to integrate these centres into the network via new supply routes. In the process, Saint-Jean-Baptiste was divested of its function as a central provisioning depot and point of transfer.
Yet the gravest crisis began in the late 1870s with the encroachment of Euro-Canadian settlement into the arable river valleys of the prairies and foothills—areas the mission network had barely penetrated. In order to minister to Catholic newcomers in these areas, Oblates sought to expand and to consolidate the southern portion of the mission network by establishing churches, schools, and hospitals in the 1880s. Their efforts were hindered, however, by contemporary developments in France, where state regulations against “unauthorized congregations” prevented the deployment of Oblate reinforcements and restricted the flow of finances from l’Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi. Left with few alternatives, Oblate prelates resolved to develop the southern portion of the mission network at the expense of the northern portion. They concentrated their resources and personnel on nascent Euro-Canadian parishes, while older missions in the north—including Saint-Jean-Baptiste—grew chronically underfunded and understaffed.
By the time of Pénard’s appointment as resident superior of Saint-Jean-Baptiste in January 1898, the mission bore little resemblance to the “work so perfect” that Taché had extolled over three decades earlier. No longer did it inspire the sense of pride and accomplishment expressed succinctly in the epithet “ad propria.” On the contrary, the mission filled the young Oblate with an overwhelming sense of despair and desolation.
