Lac La Biche - History - Technology

FLOOR MILL

One of the Lac La Biche Mission's technological firsts is Alberta's first water-powered flour mill, erected in 1863. A flour mill was essential to encourage local farmers to plant wheat, as this scholarly and well written article explains.

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In 1863 Henri Faraud, then one of the bishops in charge of the Lac La Biche Mission, had a problem. His vision was to make the Lac La Biche Mission into a supply hub, capable of supplying all the Roman Catholic missions in the North. To do this, though, he needed flour and lumber. For although the Mission could produce enough wheat, there were no flour mills in Alberta, and any flour that could be produced had to be sent up North in boats. Once again however, lumber for building boats was sadly lacking.

Even in Lac La Biche, all the wheat had to be milled by hand. It was so much work that the local Metis showed little interest in cultivating wheat, especially not when other crops could be planted. Moving what little produce was available was difficult, since workers willing to saw planks were hard to find, and their wages took a toll on the fledgling Mission's reserves.

Bishop Faraud asked Fathers Jean Tissot and Augustin Maisonneuve, both oblates, to find a solution to the problem. Clearly a mill had to be built. But how to find enough running water to turn a mill wheel that would have to run almost all summer long? The two priests set to work at a stream near the mission. By digging a canal, they planned to force the water from the stream through a small enough space to provide water power for the mill. They dug a hundred foot canal, eight feet deep at its lowest point. It wasn't enough.

But the two priests did not give up. Observing a beaver dam a little ways up the stream, they had an idea. They built up the dam, and added a gate to their small artificial lake. With this all-Canadian solution, they were able to control water flow into their canal. They could let the lake fill up, and then run the mill until it was empty again. The next year, a flour mill was built on that spot.

This encouraged the local Metis to farm wheat, and milling provided another source of income for the mission. It was also to provide the answer to the problem of lumber.

In 1871, the priests attached a circular saw blade to the millwheel, and the new sawmill was able to mill about a 150 planks every day – a job that would have required fifteen laborers just the year before. The planks they made were used primarily to build boats for shipping. When the boats arrived in the North they were dismantled for the lumber.

Brother Alexis Reynard wrote of the sawmill that "[The wheel] turns with a frightening speed and nothing stops it." It could cut logs as easily as grind flour and, when water flow was plentiful, the priests left the gate open and milled and sawed at the same time. Brother Reynard called the mill a success "beyond our wildest hopes". Two clever priests and a beaver had made Bishop Faraud's vision a reality.

Hugh Hunter co-writes "Local Legends" with Dustin Germain. Hugh is studying philosophy and works at Lac La Biche Mission for the summer.