Toward the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th
century in Northwestern Canada, an intense competition for furs
was waged, sometimes settled with weapons by the employees of
the two main fur-trade companies of the time, the Hudson’s Bay
Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC) whose employees
were known as Nor’westers. The personnel for the HBC was mostly
drawn from the British Isles, particularly Scotland and the
Orkney Islands, and arrived by sea via Hudson Bay, landing at
one of their four posts on the bay or James Bay. The Nor’westers
drew their work force from the St. Lawrence valley, and
increasingly from the growing Métis population of the Northwest,
who were French-speaking and often Catholic.
The Canadians went up river in their canoes to collect the
furs, which they call "pelu." It took two years to make the
return trip from the Athabasca basin to Montreal, since Peter
Pond’s discovery of the Portage-la-Loche in 1778—the portage was
a particular hotbed for the meeting of the brigades. The
employees of the HBC were also active, and with their solid
whale boats built according to the Orkney tradition, they
provided the Nor’westers with some powerful competition. In
spite of this, both companies were relatively prosperous.
Though the HBC officially controlled Rupert’s Land, which
included the Red River Valley, the Forks of the Red River were
on the main shipping route of the Nor’westers on their way to
the Athabasca River. When a new shareholder with the HBC,
wealthy and idealistic Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, decided
to establish a colony at the Forks for dispossessed Scots and
retiring employees of the HBC, he aroused fierce opposition on
the part of the Nor’westers. Their post on the Red River, Fort
Gibraltar, was essential to the safety of their suppliers of
pemmican and other goods. Fearing the Douglas’ colony would
bring them nothing but harm, the employees of the NWC set fire
to it. In retaliation, the HBC men demolished Fort Gibraltar.
Next, the Métis of the NWC ambushed the HBC men, and 20 of them
were killed at Seven Oaks. Only one Métis man was killed. Known
as the Seven Oaks Incident (or "La Grenouillère"), this
virtually spontaneous affair lead to the demise of the NWC and
its eventual amalgamation with the HBC in 1821.
The Red River colony continued to receive Selkirk’s support.
He recruited new settlers, demobilised mercenaries of the Swiss
De Meuron regiment who had been fighting for the British at
Plattsburg in 1812. The soldiers were Catholic, as were the
Scottish settlers, and Selkirk promised them schools and
priests. Hoping that the presence of the clergy would help to
calm the Canadians and Métis, Selkirk addressed himself to the
diocese of Quebec and asked for missionaries for the colony. In
1818, Bishop Plessis sent three young priests from his dioceses,
including Joseph-Norbert Provencher, who established the mission
of St. Boniface. Provencher is ordained bishop and vicar
apostolic of the district of the northwest in 1822, which became
the diocese of Hudson Bay and James Bay in 1844, and included
the territory to the west of the Great Lakes to the Pacific and
Arctic Oceans.
At first, Provencher ministered only to the settlers and
Métis of the Red River area, but he soon interested himself in
engaging the indigenous people as well. The old Canadian
voyageurs and the Métis from outside the colony often took
advantage of trips to Red River in an effort to have their
children baptized and make their marriages official. The news
got around, and the demand for priests increased. Canadian
settlers, such as those who were in Oregon, requested clergy in
their areas. Two priests from Quebec, Modeste Demers and
François-Norbert Blanchet, agreed to leave their posts to go to
the West Coast. As they travelled west in 1838, they stopped at
the fur forts along the way, baptizing and ministering to the
faithful as they went.1 After receiving several requests from
chief factor John Rowand of Fort Edmonton, and another from the
chief of a Cree band, named Piché, Provencher sent Jean-Baptiste
Thibault on a mission journey into what is now Alberta.
There
were not enough priests in the diocese to suffice, and Provencher began to seek religious communities to come and help,
convinced that the combined effort of these communities would
help overcome the great obstacles of the Canadian Northwest:
isolation, huge distances, and primitive conditions. The Sisters
of Charity of Montreal agreed to come in 1844. At the request of
Bishop Bourget of the diocese of Montreal, the community of the
missionary Oblates of Mary, established in Marseilles, had just
sent a few members to Canada in 1841, and when Provencher asked
for help for his missions, two missionaries were sent. Alexandre
Taché was a Canadian and Pierre Aubert was French, but together,
theirs were the first steps of the Oblate odyssey in the
Canadian Northwest. |