Fort Edmonton, which was so named by the Hudson’s Bay Company
(HBC) was known by the French as Fort-des-Prairies. The first
missionaries who visited the fort passed through on their way to
the Pacific Ocean and the missions of Oregon where approximately
20 families of French-Canadian voyageurs have requested their
presence. The two priests were Modeste Demers and F. N. Blanchet
of the diocese of Saint-Boniface, and as they stopped by the
fort they performed baptisms and marriages, as most marital
unions up to that point were "country marriages." When the
priest Jean-Baptiste Thibault came to Fort Edmonton in 1842, he
noted the baptisms, marriages, and sepulchres in the
Fort-des-Prairies register.
The first chapel was built inside Fort Edmonton in 1857;
given the name Saint-Joachim, in honour of the husband of Saint
Anne; and made a good catechism lesson for the Métis who
frequented the church. In 1876, the chapel was moved to the
Groat Estates, on land donated by Malcolm Groat, where the
present parish cemetery lies today. In 1865, Father Constantine
Scollen began teaching school in the fort chapel, which
effectively became the first school in Edmonton. After the move
to the Groat Estates, the chapel was again moved to the present
location of the parish church.
Despite the moving of the chapel, there was still a school at
the mission and in 1883, Father Henri Grandin, the resident
priest at the mission, asked the Faithful Companions of Jesus, a
French teaching order, if they would come and open a school. The
order accepted and ran a boarding school for girls and young
women in the Edmonton area. |