Western Oblate Studies 3
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Anglican and Oblate: The Quest for Souls in the Peace River Country 1867-1900
Anglican and Oblate: The Quest for Souls in the Peace River Country 1867-1900
David W. Leonard
Archivist
Provincial Archives of Alberta
If survival skills and physical conditioning were important qualifications for service in the CMS, there was an ardent concern on the part of its missionaries, and in some cases their wives, for the material as well as the spiritual welfare of Natives. In letters to their supervisors, reports of starvation and disease among the Indians were more significant themes than the alleged conniving of the Oblates. As a result, far more medical care was administered in the early years, by the Anglicans than the Oblates. When Bompas went through the region in 1870-72, he administered approximately 500 smallpox vaccinations.33 During the brutal winter of 1886-87, A.C. Garrioch, then stationed at Dunvegan, set up a regular soup kitchen service, while countless other references are made to the physical care of the Natives.34 Following the tradition of William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect in England, Bompas affirmed that:
In this country one is sometimes tempted to think too much of the physical aid, and yet the misery here, as everywhere, is the fruit and punishment of sin, and the Physician of souls is He to whom recourse must he had for a medical cure. Still, I should he delighted for the Gospel and medica1 science to go hand in hand.35
As a result of their conviction that material well being would lead to greater moral character, the Anglicans were the first to undertake to provide the Beaver with practical education. Both Garrioch and Bunn had been appointed primarily for their teaching abilities, but they were able to provide only sporadic instruction because the Indians were nomadic. It was not until 1888 that boarding schools were considered as a means of isolating Native children and weaning them from the nomadic ways of their parents.36 According to Young, "the fact that the priests do not employ themselves in education should give us an advantage.”37 Young was probably not aware that Alphonse Desmarais had begun instructing approximately 50 children at Lesser Slave Lake the previous winter. Within a few years, Catholic and Anglican boarding schools were established in several locations in the Peace River Country.
It was the Anglican missionaries who were the first to instruct the Beaver in agriculture. At the Irene Training School in Fort Vermilion, E.J. Lawrence began cultivating the land and threshing on a large scale in 1879. Three years later, at Old Wives' Lake, the sons of John Gough Brick established a small scale farm, which increases in size when it was relocated west of Peace River Landing m 1888 and provided with a threshing machine. While few Natives took up farming as a result of these efforts, the Oblates in the region also became involved in agricultural instruction.
In contrast to Anglican missionaries who received inadequate theological training, the Oblates received a greater and more rigorous theological preparation in their seminaries. From the very beginning of their Congregation in France, the Oblates had devoted their efforts to society’s lower orders, and they were always conceded with the maternal needs of their flock. However, the Oblates were not trained to provide agricultural instruction, serve as physicians, dispense food to the needy or survive and adapt to conditions in the North West. According to the Constitution and Rules of their order, the Oblate “missionaries will not refuse the task of training the aborigines in the ways of civilization", however, "in the fulfillment of such a task ... there will always be need of caution and the just degree, lest spiritual interests should come to occupy, or seem to occupy a second place.”38 Other religious communities such as the Sisters of Mercy or the Sisters of Charity specialized in and were trained for medical work, while Oblate lay brothers were responsible for constructing and maintaining residences, missions and schools.
If the weight of worldly responsibility, as contrasted with spiritual duties, fell heavier on any one Oblate in the Peace River Country, that person was undoubtedly the enigmatic and tormented Christophe Tissier. Buoyed with optimism throughout the first year of his calling, Tissier greatly impressed both Bishop Faraud in Lac La Biche and Isidore Out, the latter's coadjutor in Fort Chipewyan. However, as time passed, and little assistance was forthcoming from his superiors, Tissier's mood changed. Being isolated and increasingly at odds with Hudson's Bay Company personnel who had helped him get started at Dunvegan, Tissier became depressed, suspicious and displayed open antagonism to Bishop Out, Auguste Husson in Fort Vermillion and others. Though constantly request assistance as a result of the transfer of other mission personnel to Dunvegan, Tissier twice rejected offers of assistance. When, in the early 1880s, he finally was assisted at different times by other Oblates as well as Brothers Ernest Reynier and Louis Renault, and a nun, Sister Rose de Lima Asselin, Tissier remained extremely hostile. Volumes of invective issued from his pen as he accused Le Doussal of incompetence, Husson of working to undermine his position, and even Sister Rose de Lima and Brother Reynier of having an "affaire de coeur".39 In 1883, Tissier left Dunvegan and passed under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Saint Albert where he served in numerous missions until his death in 1926.
As a result of Tissier's state of mind and health; Oblate apostolic efforts declined noticeably in the Peace River district during the 1870s. As early as 1868, he refused to go to Fort Vermilion but, when ordered to so, he eventually agreed but vowed to make a nuisance of himself.40 After being at Fort Vermilion for several weeks, however, he refused to return to Dunvegan, claiming that the Beaver of the region would be lost without his presence. At Saint Charles Mission Tissier's recorded number of baptisms declined, attendance at services diminished and services themselves became fewer. When Le Doussal visited Dunvegan in 1880, conditions were described as appalling.41
Tissier took ail matters related to his apostolic efforts very personally. Living in isolation, he imagined enemies everywhere and consequently, some have remarked that he was incoherent and mentally unstable.42 Nevertheless, in his isolation, he was faced with worldly problems for which he had not been trained. His dwelling had been constructed by the Hudson's Bay Company and, while some of the Company's employees continued to help him, this was not consistent, and Tissier’s physical health deteriorated. He nearly drowned on one occasion and nearly froze to death in 1876 when one Louis Iroquois allegedly assaulted, robbed and abandoned him.43 Tissier's friendship with and reliance upon the free trader, Twelve Foot Davis, provided some relief but it also provoked greater hostility from the Hudson's Bay Company.
The decision to provide assistance to the mission at Dunvegan, in the early 1880s was probably due as much to the establishment of an Anglican mission there in 1879 as it was to the problems associated with Tissier. Although the arrival of Husson, Le Doussal and François-Xavier Le Serrac was intended to augment missionary efforts, their presence created dissent at the mission. This state of affairs continued until 1883 when Grouard was sent to replace Tissier. With Tissier's departure, relations with the Hudson 's Bay Company improved, and progress was noted in converting and maintaining the faith among the Beaver, Cree and Iroquois as well as the Métis and white traders.44 For his part, Grouard stayed at Dunvegan until 1885, when he was replaced by Le Serrac and Joseph Le Treste.
In the meantime, Anglicans also increased their efforts in the region. In 1883, John Gough Brick arrived at Dunvegan, and in 1884 the Diocese of Athabasca was separated from the Diocese of Mackenzie River at the 60th parallel, and placed under the jurisdiction of Bishop Richard Young at Fort Vermilion. Young also was inspired by the virtues of education and self-reliance and continued to advocate these tenets to his missionaries until his departure in 1896.
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