From the notes of Professor Phenius Osborne
Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto
Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, Toronto
Fall Term, 1971

Note: The text that follows is my translation of an original document held by Professor Victor Kleinschmit of the Department of History at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The document itself, written in French, dates from the seventeenth century and appears to be a letter from a Jesuit missionary on his deathbed, addressed to his superiors in Rome. I have cross-referenced both this document with every available edition of The Jesuit Relations, but have found no reference to it, nor to the priest mentioned (Fr. Nyon) in any available record pertaining to the history of the Jesuits in Canada.

Dr. Kleinschmit, upon hearing of my work on the St. Barthélemy dig in Parr’s Landing in the summer of 1952, invited me to come to Michigan to read it and to translate, which I did.

It is worth noting that I did not share any of the specific events surrounding the excavation of the St. Barthélemy site during the summer of 1952 with Dr. Kleinschmit, so his delivery of this document into my hands was in no way intended to support any “fantastical” notions of what might have occurred there that summer. The story, as read here, presents a plausible theory of the origin of the Wendigo legend of St. Barthélemy by a writer obviously familiar with myths and legends of that period.

In 1968, I forwarded a copy of my translation to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, (the twenty-eighth and current) Superior General of the Society of Jesus in Rome to enquire as to why it had not been included among the official records of the Jesuit missions to New France.

On February 12th, I received a brief, very courteous reply (see later notes, attached) from the Superior General’s secretary thanking me for my letter, assuring me that the Reverend Father had enjoyed reading the document I sent him and thanking me for my “assiduous scholarship” and my

“interest in the glorious history of the Jesuit martyrs” but asserting that, owing to both its “fantastical and lurid” subject matter as well as its length, the document was clearly a forgery, though it had already been examined on both palaeographic and material grounds by Professor Kleinschmit, and found to be consistent, even if the subject matter itself was not. It’s not surprising to me that the SG would find this embarrassing if fictional; and mortifying if it was proven to be an authentic record of the delusions of a Jesuit missionary likely driven mad by the isolation of northern Ontario in the seventeenth century. The Jesuit motto, “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam”—to the greater glory of God—is repeated several times in this narrative, which struck me as unusual, since one can infer that both the writer and the recipient were already well familiar with its meaning. There is an earnestness to its use here that seems noteworthy, especially in context of the narrative, as becomes obvious.

NB: Must forward a copy to Billy. He will find this entertaining, esp. in light of our “adventures” with good Dick Weal that summer!

—P. K. O., Ph. D. 09/12/71