Demicharge and Cassette Rapids on the Slave River (French)
Pierre au Calumet, La Crete, Carcajou (French)
Father Petiot and the Petitot River
Father Vegreville and Vegreville
French and French Canadian explorers, fur traders, and voyageurs
began traveling to the western prairies in the middle of the 18th
century. It is a little known fact to most Albertans, but the
first European language to ever be spoken in the region that is
now known as Alberta was, indeed, French. As these explorers and
pioneers of the fur-trade era began to settle in the west, they
were followed by Americans and British fur traders. Many worked
for the Hudson's Bay Company or the Northwest Company as fur
traders or factors and, as such, were required to settle in the
region. Many took wives from the local First Nations bands. The
Francophones had forged amicable relationships between themselves
and the local tribal populations. It was through those close ties
that the emergence of an entirely new culture was born - the Métis.
Today family names such as Breland, Vandal, Desjarlais, Cardinal,
Delorme, Dumont, Beaulieu and Deschamps remain very visible throughout the province.1 Since the early arrival of Francophones
in the west, Alberta's history has been shaped by the
contributions, socially and culturally, by this very unique group
of people. The Francophone population in Alberta has made a strong effort to
maintain their culture and find a place in Albertan society for the French language.
As the fur trade spread throughout western Canada,
missionaries also began to move into the region to administer to
the First Nations peoples and, particularly to the Metis. In the 1840s
French-speaking Roman Catholic missionaries made their way west
and set up several missions throughout the province, including
successful missions at Fort Edmonton, St. Albert, Morinville, Lac
La Biche, Grouard and Lac Sainte Anne. These Francophone Catholic
missionaries, particularly Father Lacombe, developed such close
ties with the First Nations peoples that they were called on by
the federal government to help ease the tensions and, in many
cases serve as translators and advocates for the First Nations
peoples, during the treaty talks which began towards the end of
the 19th century.
During the early 1870s many French-speaking farmers began to arrive in the west,
settling just east of Fort Edmonton at what became known as the
Lamoureux settlement. By the late 1870s, the French-speaking
population had become quite significant in the territories, as
Alberta was known at that time, and in 1875 the federal government
passed the Northwest Territories Act which recognized this
presence and allowed for the use of French in the legislative
council and the courts and granted rights to the Roman Catholic
church to establish schools in which French was the language of
instruction.
The 1880s saw the arrival of large
numbers of English speaking settlers to the west. Soon the numbers
of English residents began to outnumber the Francophone population
in the region and tensions between the two groups flared at times,
primarily over politics and language. It was this environment
which fueled Francophone protests, and later, even the Riel
Rebellion. As Anglophones fought to have English made the official
language of assemblies, courts and schools, the Francophones
banded together to resist the elimination of their language
and relations between the two groups have suffered ever since.
During
the years leading up to World War I, the French-speaking community
in Alberta worked hard to ensure their language and culture
remained intact within the province. Roman Catholic priests such
as Father Lacombe and L'Abbe Morin recruited thousands of
francophone settlers and moved them into the province. While some
came from Quebec, the majority were brought in from the United
States to settlements at places such as Saint Paul, Fahler, Lac La
Biche and Bonneville. In 1905, the anglophone presence in the
newly formed province of Alberta was so great that a stipulation
that French instruction be limited to one hour per day of
instruction in the primary grades was included in the bills which
gave Alberta and Saskatchewan their provincehood. Despite the
labours of the Francophone community to increase their presence in
Alberta, by 1916 out of a population of 500,000 only 25, 000 were
Francophone.
Following World War I, the province saw an
influx of immigrants from France and Belgium as a few soldiers and
their families arrived on the prairies to start life anew. These
new immigrants tended to establish homes for themselves in
southern Alberta at places such as Trochu and north of Stettler at
Tinchebray and Notre Dame de Savoie. With moves to anglicize the
Roman Catholic Church and the settlement of thousands of families
from Europe and the United States from the turn of the century,
strength and cohesion of the Francophone community in Alberta was
greatly weakened. Their efforts on all fronts to unite the
community and gain the recognition of the Anglo governments and
community throughout Canada had been dealt hefty blows during the
war due to the Conscription Crisis which had caused tremendous
tensions in Anglo-French relations across the country. For the
next several decades the French community worked hard to
rebuild itself, through the creation of self-financed schools that
provided Francophone instruction, the creation of the Association
des Educateurs Bilingues de l'Alberta (AEBA) which prepared
special French language programmes, and helped organize
extra-curricular events in French for school children including
plays, Christmas concerts and speaking contests. The development
of the Oblate and Jesuit Colleges was also important as they
helped to train up and educate a new franco-Albertan elite which
provided a more articulate voice for the community.
Through the 1960s and 70s
there was increasing awareness and action taken to include French-speaking Albertans in
all aspects of society, specifically in terms of educational
opportunity. As the number of schools with instruction in
French increased, so did the range of grade levels. Alberta
schools once offering French instruction in primary grades now offer
French instruction to Grade 12.
With the economy doing well, during the 1970s and 1980s, there were many French speaking Ontarians,
Quebecois who moved to Alberta. This increased population has also sparked new interest in the
language and the culture. These positive developments are again offset by some residual difficulties.
With the increasing numbers of French speaking people in Alberta has come increasing diversity among
them. The many different diverse French speaking Albertans, both new and old, are moving large urban
centers, such as Edmonton. Before this movement, the seclusion of a small rural community fostered the
cultural awareness and identity, this is waning in a large city. But with numbers increasing, and the
developments in the media and in education, there is still a celebration of French culture and language
in Alberta.
1Howard and Tamara Palmer,
Peoples of Alberta: Portraits of
Cultural Diversity. Saskatoon, SK: Western Producer Prairie Books,
1985., p.86.
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