Lac La Biche - History - Religious Communities

Education/Schools/Students | Nuns | Oblates

OBLATES

Fifty Years In the Land of Snow – Part II

Building the Early Mission

The physical development of the new Mission was not a simple matter. Buildings were put up directly in relation with its proselytizing activities, number and needs of its residents and the expansion of its farm.

As was the case at most North West missions, missionaries at Lac La Biche quickly set out to provide basic education to the children of local residents. "From the outset," according to a leading historian of Canadian missions, "education had been regarded as an indispensable adjunct to Indian mission." The Mission would not only teach the Gospel through direct instruction and practical skills through example, but would also provide training in the basic a civilization so that native and Métis children might assimilate more easily into that on-rushing world.

The first step in that direction came about when Tissot and Maissoneuve started a residential school for the local children. Almost nothing is known about the facility and, for reasons unknown, it failed. Shortly thereafter, the priests, with the able assistance of their carpenter, Brother Patrick Bowes, started work on a large house that would eventually accommodate a party of Sisters of Charity, or Grey Nuns as they were more commonly known. It is no coincidence that construction such a facility came on the heels of a decision by Grey Nuns to enter into a permanent association with the Oblates to provide teaching, medical and charitable services at all major Oblate centers.

The convent rose slowly, with the two priests working under the instruction of Brother Bowes. By the summer of 1859, half of the masonry work on this stone house completed, and 18 months later virtually all of interior finishing had been done. When completed, in the early winter of 1862, the structure was two stories in height, and approximately 30 by 50 feet in size. Although direct evidence is lacking, it must also have in these years that Father Tissot, who was experienced in such matters, set up the lime kiln at the mission, for lime would have been required in the mortar and interior plaster of the convent.

The convent was occupied immediately upon the arrival of three Grey Nuns in May of 1862. Differences between Father Tissot and the Sister Superior precluded the immediate opening of a school at the Mission, but by 1864, the Sisters were instructing 53 pupils. The number of pupils in attendance fluctuated according the whim of their parents who did not look kindly upon the absence of their children and repeatedly withdrew them from the school.

Between 1865 and 1870, for example, only seven girls and eight boys resided at the Mission and none stayed longer than a few months. This must have been very disappointing to them for, as Brother Bowes assessed it, education "is one of the principal means available to our holy religion to take root in this uncivilized world." The Sisters, realizing that their best hope for enrolment stability in the classroom lay with orphans and sick children, soon established an orphanage at the Mission. Thereafter, the convent functioned as a residential school, orphanage, chapel and the Mission's main refectory. Not only did the Sisters provide all the labor needed to perform these duties, they also accepted responsibility for all the cooking, baking, washing and ironing and assisted with farm husbandry, sowing and harvesting as required.

While the convent was the most important building to be erected in these early years, it was certainly not the only one. Neither the original house built by Father Remas nor the hastily-erected house that Tissot and Maissoneuve had put up before the winter of 1855-86 was suitable for long-term clerical accommodation, and in 1858, Brother Bowes built a rectory. Such a facility was greatly needed, for in addition to the two priests and one lay brother, the Mission housed three workmen - presumable permanent assistants - who were described merely as "jeunes gens."

Unfortunately, nothing is known about this rectory except that it could not have been of sound construction. Within five years it was leaning dangerously and had to be braced, and in 1864 its earthen chimney collapsed in the rain. As a result, Bowes refitted a clap-boarded storehouse (32’x21’) for use as a new priests' residence. While it seems unlikely, this is the elegant hip roof structure that lasted into the 1950s and is now commonly referred to as the old rectory; no information on such a building has been found.

The rapid growth of the farm, with its increasing number of livestock on the farm and rising produce storage requirements, made it necessary to erect outbuildings throughout the early 1860s. Shelter for the animals was the main concern, and in 1861, Brother Bowes put up a shingled barn, some 37 by 25 feet. Two years later he worked on a new, much larger (60'x25’) stable and converted the old one into a pig house. By 1864, according to Father Tissot's inventory, the Mission could also boast a granary (36'x25’).

With so much construction occurring, the Mission was fortunate to possess, nearly from its inception, a sawmill. Frequent references to it in early Mission correspondence leave no doubt as to its presence, but reveal nothing further about its location or construction. In all likelihood, it consisted of a sawpit and perhaps a workshop that enabled the men of the Mission to prepare timbers for construction and to make smaller items, such as shingles, by hand. As late as April of 1863, Brother Bowes, who was then squaring timbers for a gristmill, was still lamenting the Mission's lack of a circular saw.

This primitive sawmill was apparently in operation for some time, even though Tissot and Maissoneuve had intended that the gristmill, erected during the summer of 1863 "On a little water course about a mile from their residence," should also drive a circular saw.

In December of 1863, when the gristmill was operational, Brother Bowes wrote to Bishop Taché to request a two-arid-a-half foot saw blade. Certainly the new sawmill was in operation by 1872. The mill is recalled by the local name ‘Le Petit Lac du Moulin,’ which is applied to the dry lakebed of the original millpond.

"The Catholic Missions are putting Gristing Machinery in a new mill on their old sawmill site near the Mission. They expect to grind this fall. P. Pruden has given up his mill project. " - from the Edmonton Bulletin, 1885.

In 1864, when Bishop Taché visited Our Lady of Victory, he presented Tissot and Maissoneuve with plans for a church that would succeed the crowded chapel within the convent as a place of public worship. But, as Brother Bowes indicated, the Mission lacked the timber, stones and labor that would be needed for such an undertaking. As a result, the idea languished for more than a decade.

Despite this disappointment, the Mission had made tremendous strides since the arrival of the energetic Tissot and Maissoneuve in 1855. No longer housed within a single, crudely-built dwelling, the Mission now consisted of an impressive cluster of different structures, spread over a wide expanse of ground, and serving a variety of functions ranging from accommodation to public worship to gristmilling. It had, as well, embarked upon one of its most ambitious and enduring programs - education for the children. And, most important of all, its future was no longer in doubt, for it was thoroughly self-reliant in agriculture. Tissot and Maissoneuve, who departed from Our Lady of Victory in 1863 and 1868 respectively, unquestionably left a rich legacy to their successor, Father Vegreville.

The Mission as a Transportation Entrepot

If the years 1855-65 may be considered a period of establishment and consolidation at Lac La Biche, the following two decades and a half were mainly a time of expansion into new roles. Our Lady of Victory moved beyond a status of self-sufficient mission to the Indians and Métis to emerge as the renowned transportation entrepôt that Bishop Taché had foreseen many years before.

Les moulins, instruments agricoles, les animaux, vaches et chevaux en assez grand nombre furent amenés à Saint-Paul au grand déplaisir du cher Père Tissier qui ne nous a jamais pardonné d'avoir pille, comme il le disait, la mission du Lac-La-Biche pour enrichir celle de Saint-Paul.

Of course the mission had always been something of a leader in the development of transportation systems in the North West. As early as 1856, in fact, Fathers Tissot and Maissoneuve had initiated the cutting of a cart road from the Mission to Fort Pitt, which was on the route of the cart brigades from Red River Settlement. This work was done to lessen the Mission's dependence on the Hudson's Bay.

G. Gullion arrived on Friday last from Lac La Biche where he had been employed building a York or inland boat for the Roman Catholic Mission at that place. The boat is 32 feet long and will carry 5½ tons. It is for navigation of the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers. The builder furnished the lumber and does the work from $125 to $140 per boat. The iron pitch etc . ... being furnished by the Parties getting the boat built. - from the Edmonton Bulletin, 1884.

Further transportation advances followed an administrative reorganization within the Roman Catholic Church. By the mid-1860s, missions had been established at many points in the North West and throughout the Mackenzie River watershed of the far north. To assist in their management, Father Henri-Joseph Faraud had been elevated to the position of Bishop of Athabasca-Mackenzie in 1862. Comfortable in his new position of authority, Faraud proved to be tirelessly ambitious in his pursuit of more efficient mission supply systems, and would soon have a major impact on the history of Lac La Biche.

Faraud, who was well acquainted with the efficient transportation systems used by the Hudson's Bay Company, adopted its methods as far as possible. His preferred means of freight transport were the scow and the barge. The capacious, shallow-draught design of these vessels was admirably suited to the shallow waters of small rivers and lakes of the Lac La Biche region. For nearly three decades, scows and barges would convey supplies to the distant Arctic missions northward from the waterfront warehouses at Lac La Biche. The Mission was ideally situated for such a role, not merely because it straddled the height of land, but also because it could be reached by Red River cart brigades in just two months, which allowed freight to be moved down the Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers during the short northern summer.

It was in 1867 that Faraud sent the first scows down the La Biche River and into the Athabasca, where their stability was tested in the rough waters of the Grand Rapids. Under the guidance of a 26-year-old Lac La Biche Métis named Louis Fosseneuve, the Bishop and a group of Grey Nuns destined for Fort Providence became the first large party to shoot the rapids successfully. The experience was not one that the Bishop and his companions were eager to repeat, yet the feasibility of using the route to transport freight was no longer in doubt.

Faraud immediately improved the rough cart trail from the Mission to Fort Pitt and began to fashion Lac La Biche into a major trans-shipment point. In 1868, Father Vegreville, who was then in charge of the Mission, first used this system to ship threshed grain from Lac La Biche to the northern missions. These initiatives could scarcely have come at a better time, for after the expiration of the Hudson's Bay Company's trade monopoly in 1869, the Company refused to haul any more mission freight.

The importance that Faraud and the Church attached to this work became evident in 1870, when a further administrative reorganization made Our Lady of Victory the Bishop's seat (it remained so from 1870 until 1889). Upon his arrival at the Mission in February of 1870, Faraud instructed his subordinates to begin immediate construction of "un grand hangar", or warehouse, for the storage of northern mission goods that were in transit. Situated on the bank overlooking the lakeshore, the warehouse was some 70'x20' and subdivided into compartments. Boat building began at the Mission at about the same time. To overcome the hazardous rapids of the Athabasca, Faraud further instructed that a cart trail be cut to Fort McMurray, some 140 miles away, but this route would never become practicable. Soon, a new seasonal rhythm overtook the Mission as "les caravanes arrivaient régulierement, et au printemps, les barges partaient pour leur long et pénible voyages."

The new prominence of Lac La Biche brought other developments in its wake. During an 1871 visit, Sister Ursuline Charlebois, the General Assistant of the Oblates, found that the resident Grey Nuns had given so much of their time to the very practical needs of the Mission that their school had languished. She immediately saw to the re-establishment of the school and opened the Hospice Saint-Joseph, which provided basic medical care to local people. It is also possible that the number of Sisters increased at this time, for in the next year Brother Alexis Reynard erected a new building to accommodate two or three nuns.

Unfortunately school enrolments, which were initially high, quickly tapered off and the school closed again at some point in 1872. Seeking greater independence from the Mission proper, the Sisters acquired two lots of land in 1877 to help finance reestablishment of the school and the rebuilding of the hospice. Both were accomplished, and it was soon recorded that 'l’orphelinat et l'école du Lac-La-Biche sont... en voie de prospérité." Two Sisters taught at least 15 to 20 classes each week, in both French and English, and the pupils studied Cree, Chipewyan, English, theology, drawing, painting and mathematics. While attendance records are rare, it is known that in 1876 the orphanage housed 40 girls and one boy, while some 25 to 30 children regularly attended the school; by 1879 some 25 young girls were in residence.

The 1870s proved to be a decade of extensive physical change at the Mission. Upon the departure of Bishop Faraud for Europe in 1872, work began on a residence befitting someone of his stature. Few details are known about construction of this two-story structure, some 40'x20', but it was completed when Faraud returned from overseas in 1875. In the next year, Brother Patrick Bowes returned to the Mission with instructions to erect a church. While he hoped to erect it within a year, it was 1879 before the frame church (70'x26') was completed.

In the spring of 1878, work was already advanced on a new residence for Father Vegreville. This 22'x19' structure was situated beside the chapel. Then, during the summer months, two large buildings (one 72' long; the other 75') were erected. One was to provide room for barge construction and cart repair and the other became a general warehouse with a loft for grain storage and an attached ice-house for perishables. A separate laundry facility was also added to the site, although exactly when is uncertain.

While this work proceeded, Mission brothers began to cut a new road from Lac La Biche to the Athabasca, but this time via the La Biche River. The winter of 1877-78 was virtually without snow, and navigation of the La Biche was quite impossible during the following spring. This roadwork was completed satisfactorily in 1879, and thereafter cart brigades took northbound goods from the Mission to scows and barges waiting on the banks of the Athabasca.

Previous Page | Next Page