Lac La Biche - History - Religious Communities

Education/Schools/Students | Nuns | Oblates

EDUCATION/SCHOOLS/STUDENTS – Page 3

Lac La Biche. – The third foundation, of which we must make mention here, was that of Lac La Biche, in Alberta, 500 miles north of St. Boniface. Sisters Guénette, Daunais and Tisseur arrived there on August 26th, 1862, after a forty-nine day journey through the prairie.

Further West and North

For a long time, Lac La Biche was a centre for the Northern Missions, and after a time it became almost prosperous. This happened only through long and laborious efforts, mostly on the part of the Sisters. Mother Charlebois, paying an official visit to their Convent in 1880, wrote the following, &#These dear Sisters have aged very much. Their house is unhealthy. Their wonderful industry has, however, made many improvements. I found several cupboards of very curious shape, but really serviceable all the same. Some of them have been made by the Sisters themselves out of the boxes in which we send them supplies from time to time. I said to the Sisters that they were scrupulously economical. One of them assured me gaily that poverty is the surest economy. When I went into the scullery, a miserable shed letting in all the winds of heaven, an exclamation of surprise and sorrow escaped me. But the Sisters only laughed. They said, ‘Oh, Mother dear, you should have been an old-timer, we are in the lap of luxury nowadays’. I said nothing in order not to betray my feelings.”

In 1898, the Sisters moved from Lac La Biche to Saddle Lake, which is also in Alberta, in order to be nearer to the Indians, whose children they were teaching, and to leave parents no excuse for not sending the children to their school. Presently, there is an excellent industrial school for Indians in Saddle Lake.

The Grey Nuns in the Far North

The travellers to the north knew in St. Boniface that Bishop Faraud had travelled 450 miles, from Lake Athabasca to Lac La Biche (north-east of the present Edmonton), to meet them and accompany them to the Providence Mission. They thus felt regret that unforeseen delays kept them at the Red River, while the Bishop was waiting for them at Lac La Biche. As Archbishop Taché later explained, there had been terrible prairie fires that spring, and it was absolutely necessary to let the grass grow again before the ox-carts could be used, for the oxen had to feed on what they could find. Moreover, the weather was exceptionally bad, and the track was much worse than usual. In one caravan alone, 250 animals, namely oxen and horses, were lost to the hardships of the road and to mosquito bites.

On June 8th, 1867, the Nuns set out at last on their 910 mile journey from St. Boniface. The first part of their journey was by bullock carts without springs, along the track which passing through Portage-la-Prairie, Qu’Appelle, Carlton, and Fort Pitt. They travelled through hundreds of torrents and streams, where the carts sometimes had to be taken to pieces and turned into boats.

Letter

St. Boniface. December 1st,1892. Hon. Thomas M. Daly,
Minister of Interior,
Ottawa, Ontario

Honourable Sir:

There have been Sisters of Charity at Lac La Biche since 1862. Since that time, they have operated the school for which the Government has paid something for several years but for which nothing was paid most of the time. The good Nuns dwelt and taught school in buildings erected on the mission grounds and belonging to the mission rather than to the Sisters.

They thought of acquiring a property for themselves, and so they bought the property from a native who had occupied the same for several years under circumstances recognised by the Department as sufficient to secure a good title. Many other parties of the locality situated exactly in the same way have had their titles recognised and it seems but fair that the Sisters would have the same rights to their acquired property as other purchasers are able to secure.

I regret that this is not carried out towards the good Sisters, they are asked to pay $1.00 per acre to the Government for the land, and that is all the recognition offered to them for 30 years of hard labour in the distant lone land where they have worked since long before the transfer.

In bringing the matter to your knowledge, Honourable Sir, I have no doubt that you will see at once to do to the Sisters as it has been done to others, that is to give them their patent without forcing them to pay again when they have already paid $150.00 to a half- breed for his establishment.

I remain,
Your obedient servant,
(sgd) Alex, Arch. of St. Boniface.
O.M.I

Textbooks used in Alberta’s bilingual schools 1905-1960

The Lac La Biche Mission Historical Society and a few other people generously lent us these textbooks. The sample of textbooks comes mostly from the boarding school in Lac La Biche, which was closed in 1963. Textbooks like this are very rare in Western Canada.

Our Lady of Victory, the oblate missionaries’ school in Lac La Biche, is one of the oldest in the Northwest Territories, as educational services were offered to Métis and American Indian children once the Grey Nuns arrived in the community in 1862. Around 1890, the school became a residential school for natives, funded by the Canadian government in accordance with the treaty agreements. The school was moved to Lac La Selle in 1899, but a new school was opened in Lac La Biche in 1905 by the religious teachers, the Sisters of Charity, who cared for the boarding school under the management of the oblate priests. These textbooks date from this period.

The collection is characteristic of textbooks used elsewhere in the province. According to Yvette Mahé, who has studied such things, some were part of the ‘hidden curriculum,’ as they were not included as part of the province’s official curriculum. These textbooks were also used in Quebec, and the majority were printed in Canada using printing presses belonging to the Christian schools’ community of monks. We also have some examples of textbooks from France. According to Ms. Mahé, catholic teachers in Canada had great difficulties using these texts, which they found too secular.

Although there are English textbooks in the Lac La Biche Mission’s collection, it is remarkable that the series of textbooks required by Alberta’s Ministry of Education are not to be found. English was taught, but French was the principle language at school. Also, the level of learning was very good, if we compare it to that of the small homesteader schools. In 1946, authorities started to require that the school follow the provincial education laws. After a few years of friction, the provincial superintendent of schools, W.E. Frame, threatened the school principle, the priest J.-B. Cabana, saying that he would sue the parents of the schoolchildren and take away the family allowances that they received from the federal government. This intimidation tactic had the desired effect, even though it had no legal grounding.

Juliette Champagne

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1. Juliette Champagne, Mission Notre-Dame des Victoires, 1953-1963, Entrepôt et couvent-pensionnat. Interpretative matrix and narrative History, Lac La Biche Mission Historical Society and Historic Sites Services, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism, July, 1992.
2. Yvette T.M. Mahé, "Bibiographie partielle des resources didactiques utilisées dans les écoles bilingues de l’Alberta: 1949-1966", le 4 octobre, 1985.
3. Champagne, "Mission", Chapter 5, Boarding School, 1905-1963.