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During the first years of the missionary activity in the
Northwest, Anglican, Methodist and Catholic denominations were
allowed free passage on the HBC boats. As their numbers
increased, particularly the Catholics, so did their luggage and
provisions, and the Factors of the Company, as the regional
directors were known, began to complain of rising costs to their
superiors. The only passage used to enter the Athabasca-Mackenzie
basin at the time was through the Portage-la-Loche, the height
of land between the Arctic and the Hudson Bay drainages and a 20
km portage where the brigades usually met half way to exchange
goods. After Bishop Provencher’s death in 1853, his successor,
Alexandre Taché, knowing first hand the difficulties of life
without adequate supplies in the far reaches of the hinterland,
decided to try to supply the Northern missions via the Athabasca
River. This was unheard of at the time. The HBC had lost several
large canoes and men in the river’s dangerous rapids and the
waterway was considered impassable. Bishop Taché’s intended to
set up a supply and warehouse depot at the closest mission to
the river, at Lac La Biche, and develop a farm to supplement the
diet of the far-off missions as much as possible. It was a two
year affair, but goods were carried overland by the Métis
freighters to the Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Mission, and the
following year, after the spring break-up, were carried
downstream via canoes or boats to the respective missions.
In 1856, Taché descended the river with a crew of canoeists,
arriving at his Northern missions of Nativity and Providence in
a matter of days, as compared with the weeks necessitated for
the Portage-la-Loche. He was delighted with his trip and set his
plan in motion. Within a few years, a large farm was established
at Lac La Biche, complete with livestock, cereal, and garden
crops. A mill was built to saw lumber and grind wheat into
flour. It was 11 years before the system was off and operating
regularly, but the Oblates and their Métis employees mastered
the Athabasca River transportation system so well that in 1881,
the HBC approaches them for help in setting up a steam boat,
thus avoiding the difficult and expensive La Loche route.4
In the meantime, the Vicariate of the Athabasca-Mackenzie was
created and Father Henri Faraud had become its coadjutor bishop.
There were four permanent mission sites in the North, which had
at least one resident: Nativity on Lake Athabasca, St. Joseph on
Great Slave Lake, Providence on the Mackenzie River, and Our
Lady of Good Hope at Fort Good Hope, with a total of 12 priests
and 8 lay-brothers.5
The Grey Nuns were established at two of these missions (Lac La
Biche and Providence) and a missionary priest resided at Lac La
Biche while another was at Dunvegan on the Peace River.
During those years, the missions on the Plains underwent
great transformations. The warring tribes had agreed to a peace
treaty. The Vicariates are enormous territory and each bishop
concentrated on the region which has been given to him; with
time they too become divided, and the area becomes more and more
settled. Father Vital Grandin, who was first named coadjutor
bishop of St. Boniface in 1859, eventually became the bishop of
the diocese of St. Albert. At first, he had established his
bishopric at Île-à-la-Crosse, but in 1869, he chose to come to
St. Albert. At that point, he had seven missions in the
vicariate of St. Albert: Lac St. Anne, St. Joachim in Edmonton,
St. Albert, Saint-Paul-des-Cris on the North Saskatchewan River,
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires at Lac La Biche, Saint-Jean-Baptiste at
Île-à-la-Crosse and St. Pierre at Caribou Lake, in present day
Saskatchewan.6
The Oblate missionaries continued their expansion almost
until the 1960s, when the effect of the welfare state began to
be felt in the more far flung regions of the Canadian
hinterland. They built and administered many residential schools
for Aboriginal children, where sisters from teaching orders
taught. Hospitals were also built, mainly by the feminine
congregations such as the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, the
Sisters of Providence of Montreal, and the Sisters of the
Assumption of Nicolet, among others.
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