MISSIONARIES

The different religious denominations have left to the Roman Catholic and the Anglican the vast field included in the Arctic slope drained by the Mackenzie and its tributaries, as well as that of the Porcupine country to the west and the shores of the Arctic Sea to the north.

At several points here and there over this vast area these two bodies have established missions and schools. Both bodies have been represented by Bishops whose names will not be forgotten by this or the succeeding generation. Bompas of the Anglicans and Grouard of the Roman Catholics well deserve to rank among the greatest of modern missioners. The former came out from England many years ago, and at once entered this far away field. He soon became proficient in the different languages of the country and lived a life of toil and privation of which but little is known, for it is said he seldom spoke of such things. He died at Carcross on the Upper Yukon in 1906 a few months before I was there. His life work has been well portrayed in a recent publication by one of his clergy to which I would refer any one who wishes to be informed on the life and work of this “Great Apostle of the North.”

On our journey from Hay River to Fort McPherson we had as a fellow passenger Bishop Reeves who, for many years had been a co-worker with Bishop Bompas, and his many accounts of the self-sacrificing devotion of the latter prevented our learning much of his own experiences of which he seemed too modest to speak, though it is well known that his best days were spent in the country from which he has recently returned, and is now Coadjutor Bishop of Toronto.

Bishop Grouard, though now well advanced in years, continues a work very similar to that of his great contemporary. Both were familiar with all the great streams of the north. Each had trodden over the same trails, each knew as few others did the natives for whose welfare they had both in their early life relinquished pleasant surroundings in the Old World, for both belonged to influential if not noble families, Bompas in England and Grouard in France.

I met Bishop Grouard only twice. First en route on the Upper Athabaska on my way back from Peace River, and a few years later at Smith’s Landing on the Slave River. At first he was far from his home, visiting his scattered flock and superintending the work of his clergy over a diocese much larger than the whole of his native country.

On the last occasion he was hurrying back to his head-quarters before starting for a journey to Rome where he expected to be in about six weeks, but only for a short time, for circumstances compelled him to be back with his charge before the long winter set in.

It is said that politics make strange bedfellows. The same may be said of travelling in the sparsely settled districts of the north. More particularly in what might be called the border land between the pioneer settlements and the wilderness. When a journey is to be made in the latter, one goes prepared with his own tent and camp equipment and in most cases he is much more comfortable than when he is approaching civilisation where there are certain houses of accommodation called “sleeping places,” but usually pronounced without the sound of the final “g” in the first word.

Once I had the honour of occupying a place on a wide bed made on the floor of one of these road houses. Among the company thus accommodated were Bishop Young of Athabaska Landing, the late Bishop Holmes, then Archdeacon of Lesser Slave Lake, a Roman Catholic priest from Peace River and several half breeds. Bishop Young and I agreed to “double up” under the same blankets while the Archdeacon and Père Lazaret made the same arrangement.

After each of the men of Holy Orders had offered up his evening devotions in his own forms, the priest and the Archdeacon, who were neighbours in the mission field, commenced a conversation, not in the native language of either the one or the other but in the Cree tongue. There was no affectation in this on the part of either. Father Lazaret was of course familiar with French his mother tongue but knew very little English, while the Archdeacon, an Englishman by birth, was not particularly fluent in la langue Française; but a common ground of communication was found in the tongue of the Cree Indian in which both were equally at home.

Father Lazaret was at this time fifty-four years of age. Twenty-seven years before he had come out from France as a young missionary at once entering the field in the neighbourhood of Peace River, and this was the first time that he had ventured out even as far as Edmonton. As we approached this modern city in the evening with its lighted streets and throngs of busy people and he mentally compared it with the little port of the lonely post twenty-seven years before, his surprise at the change can well be imagined. He was then on his way back to visit his aged mother and to bid her a last farewell; then to return again to end his days on the banks of the Peace; for him at least, so happily named.

Speaking of the use of different languages reminds me of the case of a lay brother of the Oblate Brotherhood whom we met at the Roman Catholic mission at Fort Good Hope near the Arctic Circle on the Mackenzie. Forty years before he had left Ireland and joined the members of his order in that distant field. Most of the clergy were French and it was seldom indeed that he heard his mother tongue. The consequence was that while he spoke French fluently, with a Hibernian accent, and also the language of the Indian tribes of the country he informed me that it was with great difficulty that he could remember how to express himself in the tongue of his fathers. Thus do men of the older civilisations sacrifice themselves for the sake of the most lofty ideal the world has ever known.

CONCLUSION

AN APPEAL

I cannot close without calling public attention to a matter that impressed me very forcibly on my journey and which has ever since been before my mind, and that is the great need for the establishment of a hospital somewhere in that vast region of the Mackenzie watershed and its vicinity. Here is a country sparsely populated to be sure, but of vast extent compared with which most European countries are insignificant. Between Edmonton and the Arctic Sea we pass over sixteen degrees of latitude, while the distance by the travelled route is over 2000 miles. Again from the Rocky Mountains on the west to the Hudson Bay on the east the distance is almost equally as great.

At Athabaska Landing and at Peace River on the southern fringe of this great wilderness a few physicians have now established themselves but beyond these places the only medical aid available is from an occasional visit of the Government physician and what the missionaries are able to furnish. At practically every post and Indian village on our way we were besieged for medicine by the afflicted. In many cases they were the victims of chronic diseases which would undoubtedly yield to surgical treatment provided proper means were afforded for attendance and nursing.

A few of the missionaries have some knowledge. One of them, perhaps the most proficient in this respect, informed me that appendicitis was quite as prevalent among the Indians of those regions as it is in the outside world, but that he felt incompetent to attempt an operation, and, moreover, even if such operations were properly performed, the conditions of life in the wigwam would afford poor chances for an ultimate recovery.

If a small hospital properly equipped were established say at Fort Simpson, at the junction of the Laird and Mackenzie Rivers, or at some point on Great Slave Lake, it could be reached by canoes in summer from points all along the Mackenzie even down to the sea on the north as well as the country to the south along the Athabaska and Great Slave Lakes and their tributary streams. By this means the poor people who are at present compelled to live out a life of suffering till death comes to their relief, would have the benefits that modern science affords to the afflicted in civilised life.

All know the splendid results that have attended similar efforts on the Atlantic Coast between Newfoundland and Hudson’s Straits through the agency of Dr. Grenfell. Here is a field even greater than that of the Labrador but where no such a benefactor has yet appeared, and my last words in this connection must be an appeal to our people on both sides of the Atlantic to unite in what would really be a most beneficent work for suffering humanity. I cannot but believe that if this want were generally known it would not be long till the charitably disposed would come to the relief of those lonely and helpless people.

I have now concluded an imperfect narrative of a hasty trip through the country, and I may as well confess that it is doubtful if I would have sought the public ear through this publication had I not thought it my duty to call attention to this matter, and if words of mine should aid in bringing about an amelioration of the sufferings of those dwelling in that lone wilderness, I shall feel well rewarded for having attempted an unfamiliar task in the preparation of this narrative.

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Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.

Text uses “totem” but one illustration uses “totum” in its caption and in the List of Illustrations. Both spellings have been retained here.

Two duplicate pages between the Title page and the Preface have been deleted by the Transcriber.

Page 70: “Donoueschingen” should be “Donaueschingen.”