Missions
The establishment of missions by the Catholic, Methodist and Anglican
churches was significant in the formation of Métis communities in
Alberta. These communities facilitated the transition of the Métis
people from the buffalo economy to one that incorporated more agrarian
activities.
The first missions in Canada were established to introduce
Christianity to the Aboriginal peoples. As early as 1634, the Jesuits
established missions among the peoples of the Lake Huron region. Failing
to convert the Iroquois, the missionaries persisted west, and in 1665,
Father Allouez reached Lake Superior, and landed at the great village of
the Chippewas. Upon learning from the Aboriginal peoples of the
existence of a great river to the West, two missionaries, Marquette and
Joliet, set out on a discovery mission from Green Bay. The two reached
the river on 17 June 1673, and travelled the waterway as far as the
mouth at Arkansas.
On 1 November 1818, Father Joseph-Norbert Provencher
built a small log chapel on the east bank of the Red River opposite the
Forks, and dedicated it to Saint Boniface. St. Boniface became the first
permanent mission west of the Great Lakes and served the growing
population of the Red River Settlement. The mission at St. Boniface was
the first mission established for the Métis people.
In 1840, Robert Rundle was appointed by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)
to be the company chaplain at Fort Edmonton. During his first years at
the fort, Rundle performed the majority of his duties inside the post;
he offered worship services, baptisms and marriages for the fort
inhabitants and some of the visiting Aboriginal people. To accommodate
his work, a chapel that could hold up to 100 people was constructed in
1843. By that time, however, Rundle had shifted his focus and efforts to
the Plains Cree people. He began a mission for the Cree at Pigeon Lake
in an effort to assist their transition to an agrarian lifestyle. He
retired in 1848.
Father Jean Baptiste Thibeault, who arrived in the West
in 1842, was happily received by the Catholic fur traders and French
Catholic fur trade servants. He began the mission at La Ste Anne in
1843. By the time the next Methodist missionary, Thomas Woolsey, arrived
in 1855, he found little room for a Methodist ministry in Fort Edmonton.
Consequently, Woolsey reopened the mission post established by Rundle
years earlier at Pigeon Lake. In 1852, Father Lacombe came to serve
Aboriginal peoples in the Fort Edmonton area. In due course, he either
founded or ministered at the Alberta missions of Lac Ste Anne, St Albert
(1861) and St-Paul-des-Cris (Brosseau) 1865. St-Paul-de-Cris was
designed to be a model farm community to train the Cree in the
agricultural life. The 1870s were difficult years in the region. After a
series of crop failures and a devastating smallpox epidemic Lacombe
recognized that the target group had not developed a sufficient interest
in agriculture and closed the mission in 1874.
The mission at Lac La Biche was officially established in 1853. The
Oblate Missionaries, the Grey Nuns, and the Daughters of Jesus built
this mission to be the centre of colonization for the populations of
Northern Alberta, and ultimately, Western Canada. Missionaries were also
involved in the development of Lesser Slave Lake, Fort Chipewyan,
Dunvegan, and other northern communities. In January 1896, following the
recommendation of Father Lacombe and an earlier request for a land grant
presented to Ottawa, Bishop Grandin appointed Father Adeodat Thèrien as
the spiritual caretaker of a colony for the Métis population. The Church
was granted a 21-year lease by the Federal cabinet, and the colony was
known as St-Paul-des-Métis until 1913. Father Lacombe and Father Thèrien
attracted the Métis to the settlement with the promise of land and
Catholic schooling for their children.
The Victoria Methodist Mission was begun in 1862 on the banks of the
North Saskatchewan River (15 kilometres south of present-day Smoky Lake,
Alberta) where a small population of Aboriginal people lived. The
Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) joined the community in 1864 and people
venturing west from Red River found a place to homestead. By the turn of
the 20th century, the site was a thriving community of Aboriginal people
and immigrants.
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