Lac La Biche - History - Religious Communities

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OBLATES

Fifty Years In the Land of Snow
By: Monsignor Gabriel Breynat, O.M.I., 1945

Lac La Biche!...I have heard of it so many times! I have finally arrived: What joy! It was formerly the departure point for the convoys for the Great North. The annual supplies were transported by ox carts and horses across the prairies from the Red River. These supplies were put up in a bed shed which is still found there, when spring came, they were dispatched to their destination by the way of the La Biche River, tributary of the Athabasca River whose rapids are so dreaded.

The Missionary Impulse

As the mid-point of the 19th century approached, missionaries of several faiths became yet another important segment of the North West's broadening cultural mosaic. Linked to an ancient tradition of proselytizing and motivated by a desire to Christianize indigenous peoples everywhere so that they, too, might enjoy eternal salvation, these zealots built their missions upon the path-breaking work of the Hudson's Bay Company. As one authority has remarked:

Missionaries depended on it (the Hudson's Bay Company) for transportation of themselves and their supplies, for its brigades were the only scheduled services. They counted on its hospitality for its posts were the only convenient and comfortable hostels. They had to look to it for a multitude of services, for carpenters and other tradesmen were almost all in its employ. They could do little business without it, for it possessed a monopoly of trade. At times they could scarcely survive without it…

Initially, the Hudson's Bay Company did little to promote the work of missionaries in the North West, for it resented any activities that kept the natives from the profitable trade. In time, however, those officers of the Company who were religious enthusiasts insisted on assistance to missionary endeavors in the western interior. As the moral and religious improvement of Natives was a condition of the Company's renewable (and, therefore, revocable) License to Trade, the view of such men eventually won out. Subsequently, the Company grudgingly assisted missions throughout the North West, a situation that would last as long as the Hudson's Bay Company held a monopoly on trade.

Les Pères de résidence à la mission de Notre-Dame des Victoires, au Lac-La-Biche, ont encore à desservir plusieurs postes: celui de Saint-Valentin, où la Compagnie de la baie d'Hudson a un établissement pour son commerce; un autre au Petit-Castor, station très importante et peu éloignée du Lac La Biche; c'est là que séjournent les Cris, tant chrétiens qu'infidèles; ces derniers, était visités souvent par des ministres protestants, sont fort exposes à embrasser leurs erreurs; enfin celui de Saint-Jean Baptiste, au confluent de la petite et grande rivière d'Athabasca. C'est la mission du Lac-La-Biche qui fournit à ces divers postes ce dont ils ont besoin.

At Lac La Biche, as elsewhere in the North West, trading posts tended to focus settlement. These provided missionaries with a captive audience, at least at certain times of the year, when trading and provisioning were taking place. In 1825, George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, remarked that Lac La Biche area was inhabited not only by Cree and Chipewyan, but also by Métis and freemen traders formerly employed by the North West company. By 1844, when an early settler named Joseph cardinal succeeded in interesting the Roman Catholic Church in Lac La Biche as a missionary field, the population had grown considerably. Father Jean-Baptiste Thibault who journeyed to Lac La Biche and Cold Lake at Cardinal's request, found some 40 families awaiting him. Eventually, more Métis families took up land around the lakeside post until they formed a village.

Thibault's enthusiastic welcome at Lac La Biche’s pastoral visits were repeated only intermittently the next decade. Not until 1852 did Bishop Taché of St. Boniface instruct Father Albert Lacombe about the feasibility of a permanent mission in Lac La Biche area on the basis of local attitudes about missionaries and on the likelihood of success. Taché had a long-range plan for the Mission.

Agricultural Self-Sufficiency and Beyond

Tissot and Maissoneuve put the Lac La Biche Mission on a sound footing. They immediately reconsidered Father Remas' location: it was too close to the fort where the Natives might be subjected to corrupting influences; it was poorly situated for fishing, upon which the mission would depend for much sustenance; it had no direct lakefront access which hindered travel and transport; and it was hemmed in by the Hudson's Bay Company which militated against expansion of the planned farm, which would surely be required in time.

In view of these liabilities, Maissoneuve and Tissot moved the Mission across the lake to a site less open to Hudson's Bay Company influence, on today's Mission Bay. Initially the priests found shelter in a tent in the snow; as soon as possible they erected a modest log cabin. This was habitable by June 13, 1856. At about the same time, they moved Father Remas' old mission house across the lake to the new site to provide additional space for their endeavors.

For most of the next decade, the priests spent much of their time making the Mission self-sufficient through agriculture. This was a difficult task,

L'établissement de Notre-Dame des Victoires avait été projeté pour pouvoir, plus tard et au besoin, servir d'entrepôt pour l'approvisionnement de nos Missions du Nord...

For the time being, however, this remained only a plan. Taché's immediate concern was the activity of the Methodist church in the locale, for the Reverend Henry Steinhauer had been considering the establishment of a mission at the site of the Hudson's Bay Company's Lac La Biche post. The mission that Lacombe recommended to his bishop and subsequently dedicated as a result of this Methodist proselytizing was called Our Lady of Victory.

In October of 1853, Father Remas, a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, arrived at Our Lady of Victory to serve as the first resident missionary. He constructed a small log mission building near the new Hudson's Bay Company post on the southeast shore of the lake. His flock consisted mainly of Métis, Cree and Saulteaux (Ojibwa), although a small band of Montagnals (Chipewyans) visited annually. As one author described the locals:

La population était presque totalement métisse franco-crise. Des sauvages plus ou moins fixés dans les environs, Cris du Lac Castor et Montagnais du Lac de Couer, fréquentaient le Poste (HBC) aux époques de la traite, au printemps et à l’automne.

Despite some success, Father Remas was continually harassed by the local Cree. This, coupled with a shortage of food, illness and a lack of administrative skill, contributed to his replacement by Fathers Tissot and Maissoneuve in 1855.

Inasmuch as they initially lacked most tools, draught animals and an assured supply of labor. By the fall of 1856, they had succeeded in planting a modest field of potatoes, barley and kohlrabi, yet Father Tissot wrote to Father Vegreville that "les misères de tout genre ne manquent pas. La nourriture manquant nous attire bien des difficultés que nous mettent d'un jour a 1'autre à l'agonie."

However arduous under such circumstances, farming was understood to be vital to the success of Our Lady of Victory. This view of it stemmed, in part, from the obvious fact that the Mission required a reliable source of foodstuffs if it were to survive and prosper. Presumably, the whitefish that was a staple of the local fur trade diet had its detractors among the missionaries. But more importantly, the encouragement of agriculture among semi-nomadic peoples had long been a central element in missionary efforts to bring their civilization to bear upon the daily lives of the Natives. Native farms meant an end to dependence on the increasingly unreliable hunt; they meant increased stability of residence, which was conducive to missionary work; and they meant the acquisition of practical mechanical skills that were marketable in a predominantly white world, which all missionaries assumed the North West would soon be.

Little is known about the Mission’s farms and course of the next five years, but it is clear that by1861 their fields were producing all that was needed to make the mission self-sufficient and then some. Wheat, potatoes and barley were plentiful was becoming abundant. In fact, the Mission already had more hogs than were needed and Father Maisonneuve gave some to the members of their congregation "dans l'espoir de fixer les familles sur un morceau de terre." Evidently, the missionaries' efforts to settle more people on the land had not yet met with much success.

Notwithstanding an occasional dry year, the Mission’s farm flourished. When Father Tissot conducted a detailed inventory of its resources after the bumper crop of 1864, he found 32 cattle, 18 horses, 16 hogs and a wide variety of implements. Twenty acres were used for cultivation, mainly through the use of draught. The Mission granary and the larder were full; "Pour ce moment," wrote one chronicler of Lac La Biche, "la Mission du Lac La Biche eut la reputation d’être extrêment riche."

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