Le Père
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents
Montagnais, Algonquins, and Nascapis, but even such as resorted to the trading-posts of Abbittibbi, Albany, and Moose Factory, on Hudson Bay, were visited by the "Black-Robes". In spite of their precarious circumstances, those aboriginies often enough repaid by a faithful discharge of their religious duties the devotedness of their spiritual guides.
By the fortieth clause of the Montreal capitulation England had granted religious liberty to the Indians as well as to the whites then in the colony. Yet some of the instructions soon after sent to her representatives on the banks of the St. Lawrence were openly against the spirit, if not the letter, of that treaty. The officials were told that " all missionaries among the Indians, whether established under the authority or appointed by the Jesuits, or by any other ecclesiastical authority of the Romish Church, [must] be withdrawn by degrees, and at such times and in such a manner as shall be satisfactory to the Indians and consistent with the public safety, and Protestant missionaries appointed in their places " (Royal Instructions to Sir George Prevost). The natives refused to part with their priests on any consideration, thereby showing the extent of the influence these had acquired over them.
--New Advent
In the far East other Oblates were emulating those of the Canadian Northwest:
in addition to those already mentioned
there were Fathers André Garin and Charles Arnaud,
then Fathers Louis Babel and Jean-Pierre Guéguen.
These missionaries repeatedly visited in succession
Tadotissac,
Les Escoumains,
Maskuaro,
Mingan,
Portneuf,
and Les Ilets.
As a rule their efforts were crowned with success. Not only did they teach their neophytes the rudiments of the Christian doctrine, but they even imparted to them some knowledge of the secular sciences, and enhanced the attractiveness of the Catholic worship by solemn processions and other pious devices.
As early as 30 Sept., 1850, one of them, Father Arnaud,
as this writing (1910) still actively engaged in the eastern field,
wrote of the natives of Les Ilets:
"They are the best instructed on the coast; they all know how to read and write.
It is inspiring to see them in the church, the men on one side and the women on the other, prayer-book in hand, vying with each other, as it were, in modesty and fervour.
Another spectacle scarcely less striking is that of the little children at prayer after the evening service, when every mother teaches the members of her family how to pray to the Great Spirit" (
Rapport sur les Missions de Québec, March, 1851, p. 36.
Sept Iles
Louis Babel O.M.I. was a Swiss oblate and Jesuit missionary who emigrated from Switzerland to Canada. In 1854, while visiting Sept-Îles, Québec, he met Charles R. Arnaud another oblate missionary. For the next sixty years they would carry out missionary work together. While Arnaud ministered to the needs of the Native Americans, Babel was more interested in geology. During an expedition in 1866, Babel recorded that the area around Lake Winokapau was abundant in minerals. During his travels, he was the first man to seriously and scientifically map and describe the interior of Labrador.
Using Babel's diaries and maps, Albert Peter Low was the next explorer to do any
significant surveying of the geological aspect of the Labrador Peninsula.
Working for the Canadian Geological Survey between 1892 and 1895/96, he covered
and mapped 12,800 square kilometers (4942 sq. miles) of this treacherous and
unexplored land. This expedition was conducted by foot, canoe, dogsled and
snowshoes. Low discovered vast deposits of iron ore and published a report which
became the basis for later exploration and development of the iron ore deposits
located in Labrador West.
Considered as a nation, the Hurons had been wiped off the face of the earth. Such of the priests as were not required for missionary work within what is now the American Union then turned their attention toward the more pacific tribes nearer home. The Micmacs had from the first accepted Christianity (see MICMACS). On 29 July, 1657, Gabriel De Queylus, Gabriel Souart, and Dominique Galinier, members of a newly founded ecclesiastical society, the Sulpicians. accompanied by M. d'Allet a deacon of the same institute, arriving at Quebec, immediately proceeded to the village of Ville-Marie, now Montreal, where they replaced the Jesuits in the charge of the local parish. Though more especially destined for work among the whites, the Sulpicians did not overlook the salvation of the native tribes. Thus, ten years after their arrival in Canada (1667), they ministered to the Ottawas and other Algonquin groups. Bishop De Montmorency-Laval, the first prelate in the colony, entrusted to them the care of a mission established at Quinte Bay on Lake Ontario, for the benefit of the Cayugas, an Iroquois tribe, and many adopted Hurons settled in their midst. Their success with the adult population was not complete; but their very presence paved the way towards establishing missionary stations all along the western shore of Lake Ontario (1669). Soon after, the Sulpicians were succeeded in that field by the Recollects who had just returned to Canada. Father Louis Hennepin and others laboured with energy, but harvested only tares, and the natives gradually returned south; all traces of a mission on the Canadian side of the lake disappeared.
--New Advent
