JOURNALS AND LETTERS

News from Abroad

Excerpt from a letter of Reverend Father Fourmond, O.M.I., apostolic missionary at St. Albert
Lac La Biche Mission, Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, December 14, 1874

No doubt you will be surprised to receive a letter from me from this new post. What can I say, I have been tossed here by holy obedience, and it’s enough to feel satisfied; it’s the outcome of a quiet revolution, the only kinds that happen around here. Through a decision of a higher authority, Lac La Biche has returned, as formerly, under the Jurisdiction of Bishop Grandin, with this exceptional fact that it will be administered by a special superior answering only to the Very Reverend Father General, and sharing its costs and profits with both Vicariates of Bishop Faraud and Grandin.

Reverend Father Leduc, appointed Superior, having unfortunately a delicate health, as well as Reverend Father Vegreville and Reverend Father Rémas of this same Mission, worn out by the hardships of a long apostolate, has requested me from His Majesty to assist them as a kind of manager; given the fact of my rather good health, I was forced to pack my belongings to come and winter here, about two hundred leagues further north than last year. Everything is different here: the country and the people. The country: it is not the vast imposing plains, the gigantic mountains with their thousand picturesque forms of the yet untouched Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix-Mission, at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, it is only bush, marshes and lakes. As for lakes, we have Beaver Lake, Mhale Lake, and the large and beautiful Lac-La-Biche! I still don’t know the first two which are about a days walk from here, but there are many Métis families already established in these different places, I think that very soon I will have to go and evangelize them.

As for Lac La Biche, you must already know it since a long time. Notre-Dame-des-Victoires is one of the oldest missions of the district of St. Albert, it is also one of the most complete; we already have an excellent establishment for the Sisters, with an orphanage and a good farm. Unfortunately, the Fathers’ House is not large enough to lodge the Fathers and Brothers, we are somewhat piled one on top of the other. But thanks to the care of our hard working predecessors, a larger two-story house, a marvel in this part of the country, is already up and opened: we most likely will be able to move in this summer.

The Sisters’ chapel which serves as parish church is also very inadequate. But how lucky we are to have here as superior the great architect and contractor of the beautiful St. Albert Cathedral; he is already planning to put the axe to the wood to erect here a church in conformity with the importance of The Mission: that which is made easier because the construction timber is close by and the genius of Bishop Faraud has endowed us with a hydraulic sawmill along with our flourmill.

This Lac La Biche is assuredly the most beautiful I have seen yet. It is at least half larger than Lac Saint-Anne. Its banks higher, form all around it like a vast belt of bays, peninsulas, hills and valleys, giving it at first glance a much more picturesque aspect; a few large islands scattered here and there, a few small houses of primitive simplicity, surrounded by a small patch of land, built on the hillsides, complete this charming landscape which surprises the traveller through bush and marshes, rivers and creeks. The Mission especially, with its many establishments, and its small river that winds its way close by through a marsh of high reeds to end up in the lake just at its feet, sits majestically on the incline of a rich knoll, strikes you immediately as the queen of this beautiful lake!

It is true that these beauties of nature are somewhat hidden at this time by a thick coat of snow that the biting north wind has spread all around, so that if you wish to make only a short promenade, you have to be ready to walk in snow knee deep, or have recourse to the bright invention of snowshoes, or dog-sleighs, a very cheap system that replaces in this country, the less economical and especially the less apostolic one of your railways and state-coaches. If the system of civilization is incomparably more marvellous and faster, that of primitiveness has its advantages and pleasures also; thus these stately snowshoes, while allowing you to walk, cane in hand if you so wish, over snow banks, where without them you would be buried alive, give you a certain air of dignity that could be envied by many personages of the smart upper class of your civilized world! Then this light sleigh made of parchment, pulled by three or four racers of the canine race, in this time and country, could challenge your best harnessed teams; with it, you travel long distances without concern for rivers, lakes or snow banks; it’s not all, how many times these faithful companions, of the road, after having pulled a long day without eating content with the fish you throw them at night camp, come to warm you up by lying obediently at your feet, a service not to be spurned, on a cold clear night under the moon and stars, with minus forty degrees temperature: neither one is very poetic! Then how to describe the funny tricks they play on you to amuse you along the way; now and then while running with their tail in trumpet, they turn anxiously toward you, to reassure themselves that you are following and you are still around them. Sometimes they forget and violate the code by launching toward you to caress you; then the driver, who is usually not appreciative of the process, calls them back to duty with the whip, thus making you witness peculiar scenes: the poor animals, suddenly confused in their most legitimate feelings, roll in resentment, howl under the blows, and sometimes to take revenge against their inflexible guide, free themselves from their harness by clever manoeuvrings, luckily not all know the trick, run away and laugh at the man with the whip; he is then forced to resort to more polite procedures and negotiate with the cunning fugitive to bring him back to the post.

A few words now on the inhabitants of the country. While at Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix, we are in the very centre of barbarism and savagery, especially today as they tell us that peace is once again broken between the Cree and Blackfoot, here as in St. Albert, we have Christians, who though not perfect, give us nevertheless consolations. They are almost entirely Métis, French-Canadians, some full blood Canadians, quite peaceful, living mostly from hunting and fishing; as for farming, they have at the most a little patch cultivated around the house; each year they put in a little barley or wheat and potatoes. Having always some excellent fish as much as they want, they do not see the need for heavy farming that would cost them a lot of sweat, because generally speaking here, to earn your bread at the sweat of your brow is something unknown. Nevertheless, when travelling, they can work like a horse, not to say like a dog; but is seems to be in their nature to run an entire day instead of working the soil. This passion to move, hunt and travel makes it difficult for us to gather them around our Missions, and we are forced to run after them to evangelize them and give them the sacraments, making our ministry that much more difficult.

Because of this, a certain number of these houses built by the first settlers in these undeveloped places, are today abandoned, their inhabitants having taken domicile elsewhere, until they move again, prompted by their fancy.

The same in St. Albert, the larger number of settlers have moved to the open prairie for the buffalo hunt; they spend the winter at Buffalo Lake where they have built about sixty houses; Father Doucet is with them. Besides this, about one hundred Métis families from St. Boniface have come to camp in the same prairie at Cypress Hills. It is from there that Father Lestang has come to replace Father Leduc at St. Albert.

Your humble servant,

J. Fourmond

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