'They fought just like a cat and a dog!': Oblate-methodist relations at Berens River, Manitoba, 1920-1940

Prairie Forum

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 51-64

  Gray, Susan E ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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RELIGION;

EID: 0033390725     PISSN: 03176282     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Jennifer S.H. Brown, "'A Place in Your Mind For Them All': Chief William Berens," in James A. Clifton (ed.), Bring and Becoming Indian: Biographical Sketches of North American Frontiers (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1989), 210.
2. Jennifer S.H. Brown, "Chief Jacob Berens," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). A. Irving Hallowell dated Jacob's birth to 1832; others, translating his name to "Something That Moves Across the Sky" - a reference to Halley's comet - believe he was born in 1834. He married Mary McKay whose father, William McKay, was a Hudson's Bay Company trader at the Trout Lake post in Ontario's Severn River drainage. By the signing of Treaty 5 in 1875, Jacob had been back at Pigeon Bay for five years - living in one of the area's first log houses and trading furs with the Berens River Hudson's Bay post. Methodism and log houses notwithstanding, the old ways were a major part of both family and community life for Jacob whose father, Bear, held shaking tent and Midewiwin ceremonies until his death in 1873. Jacob was a leader in the treaty negotiations and was elected chief of Berens River, Little Grand Rapids, Poplar River and Pikiangikum. This moved him onto centre stage in a region facing significant transitions. After 1875, Jacob became an active regional player in the bureaucratic world of Indian Affairs.
3. James A. McLachlan was born near Aylmer, Ontario, on 22 October 1855. After attending the Victoria and Wesleyan Theological Colleges, he was ordained by the Conference in 1879. After twelve years in charge of the Victoria Indian Mission, he was transferred to Berens River in 1893. He and a boat load of six children, en route to the Brandon Industrial School, were drowned on Lake Winnipeg on 12 September 1903. McLachlan was buried at Berens River. Victoria University Archives, Biographical Files.
4. Joseph De Grandpré was born at Isle du Pas, Québec, on 26 March 1882 and died at Saint-Adolphe, Manitoba, on 7 March 1973. He studied at Assumption College from 1896 to 1905 and entered the novitiate at Lachine on 14 August 1905. He was ordained at Ottawa on 5 June 1909. He served in western Canada at Camperville, Manitoba, Beauval, Saskatchewan and Berens River, Bloodvein and Little Grand Rapids, Manitoba. See Gaston Carrière, Dictionnaire Biographique des Oblats de Marie Immaculée au Canada, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Éditions de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1976), 261. Frederick Leach was born in London, England, on 14 July 1892. Hejoined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate on 9 March 1913 at Lachine, Québec, and took his Perpetual Vows on 9 March 1920 at Berens River. Leach also served at Bloodvein and Little Grand Rapids. He continued living in Berens River after his semi-retirement in 1965 until 1978 where he entered full retirement in St. Boniface. Leach died on 12 July 1982 at the residence of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, St. Boniface. See Brother Frederick Leach, Sixty years With Indians and Settlers im Lake Winnipeg (Winnipeg: Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Manitoba Province, c. 1983).
5. Joseph De Grandpré was born at Isle du Pas, Québec, on 26 March 1882 and died at Saint-Adolphe, Manitoba, on 7 March 1973. He studied at Assumption College from 1896 to 1905 and entered the novitiate at Lachine on 14 August 1905. He was ordained at Ottawa on 5 June 1909. He served in western Canada at Camperville, Manitoba, Beauval, Saskatchewan and Berens River, Bloodvein and Little Grand Rapids, Manitoba. See Gaston Carrière, Dictionnaire Biographique des Oblats de Marie Immaculée au Canada, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Éditions de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1976), 261. Frederick Leach was born in London, England, on 14 July 1892. Hejoined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate on 9 March 1913 at Lachine, Québec, and took his Perpetual Vows on 9 March 1920 at Berens River. Leach also served at Bloodvein and Little Grand Rapids. He continued living in Berens River after his semi-retirement in 1965 until 1978 where he entered full retirement in St. Boniface. Leach died on 12 July 1982 at the residence of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, St. Boniface. See Brother Frederick Leach, Sixty years With Indians and Settlers Im Lake Winnipeg (Winnipeg: Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Manitoba Province, c. 1983).
6. Archives Deschâtelets, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Berens River, and Little Grand Rapids Correspondence [hereafter AD], box L581.M27L, no. 16.
7. Percy Berens to Susan Gray, Winnipeg, 15 November 1994.
8. Rev. John Niddrie was born in Oban, Scotland, on 22 September 1863. After arriving in Canada in 1884, he was ordained in 1915 and was stationed at the McDougall Mission in Morley, Alberta from 1889 to 1909. In Manitoba, he worked at Oxford House from 1910 to 1915 and Island Lake from 1915 to 1920. He then ministered at Berens River until his retirement in 1938. Niddrie died and was buried at Berens River on 4 May 1940. Victoria University Archives, Biographical Files.
9. "Annual Report of Egerton R. Young for Berens River, 1875-76," Annual Reports of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 1873-1876 (Toronto: Wesleyan Conference Printing Office, 1876), xxii. Copy in United Church Archives, Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario.
10. United Church Archives, Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario, Rev. John Semmens Personal Papers, PP34, Semmens, "Under Northern Lights," 26.
11. United Church Archives, Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario, Rev. John Semmens Personal Papers, PP34, Semmens, "Under Northern Lights," 26.
12. Ibid., 39.
13. Alexander Sutherland, "Address of the Toronto Conference of the Methodist Church," Minutes of the Toronto Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, 1884 (Toronto: William Briggs, 1884), 248.
14. Ibid. Undoubtedly, the Indians involved had a rather different view of what had been going on; however, the thing to note here is the perspective of the missionaries who were on sincere, if shaky, ground.
15. S.D. Gaudin, Missionary Bulletin 1, no. 3 (September 1903): 308.
16. "Annual Report of E.R. Young for Berens River, 1874-1875," Annual Reports of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 1873-1876 (Toronto: Wesleyan Conference Printing Office, 1876), xxix.
17. W.J. Townsend, H.B. Workman, George Eayrs, A New History of Methodism (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), 496.
18. E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (England: Penguin Books, 1981), 441-44.
19. Oblate Archives, Manitoba Province, Journal of Brother Frederick Leach.
20. The Indian Missionary Record 2, no. 9 (November 1939).
21. Joseph Etienne Champagne, Manual of Missionary Action (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1948), 277, 324.
22. The Indian Missionary Record 2, no. 1 (January 1939).
23. The Indian Missionary Record 1, no. 8 (September 1938).
24. Champagne, Manual of Missionary Action, 564.
25. Ibid., 599.
26. Ibid., 600.
27. Ibid.
28. The Indian Missionary Record 1, no. 7 (July/August 1938).
29. J.R. Miller, "Denominational Rivalry in Indian Residential Education," in Raymond Huel, ed., Western Oblate Studies 2 (Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Meilen Press, 1992). Religious enmity between Protestants and Catholics did not become rampant in the Canadas until the 1840s and 1850s. See J.M.S. Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 1841-1857 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971).
30. J.R. Miller, "Denominational Rivalry in Indian Residential Education," in Raymond Huel, ed., Western Oblate Studies 2 (Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Meilen Press, 1992). Religious enmity between Protestants and Catholics did not become rampant in the Canadas until the 1840s and 1850s. See J.M.S. Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 1841-1857 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971).
31. Champagne, Manual of Missionary Action, 37.
32. Ibid., 40.
33. The Missionary Bulletin 1, no. 3 (September 1918): 315.
34. Mark G. McGowan, "Rethinking Catholic-Protestant Relations in Canada: The Episcopal Reports of 1900-1901," Canadian Catholic Historical Association 59 (1992): 22-23.
35. Percy Berens to Susan Gray, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 15 November 1994.
36. Fred Baptiste to Susan Gray, Berens River, Manitoba, 1 December 1994.
37. Virginia Boulanger to Susan Gray, Berens River, Manitoba, 1 December 1994.
38. Victoria University Archives, T.E. Egerton Shore Correspondence, fonds 14, subseries 5, box 5, file 98.
39. Ibid.
40. Oblate Archives, Manitoba Province, Journal of Brother Frederick Leach.
41. Ibid.
42. AD, box L581.M27C, no. 14.
43. AD, box L581.M27L, no. 20. Cubby Green was Walter Green's father. Interestingly, William Berens himself got involved in this struggle, working with Green and Jones. He said that although he had received no official authority to return the children to Cubby, he was chief and had a right to rule his band. Leach wrote in exasperation, "The chief has not acted in an impartial manner as he should have done for he has admitted that he tried to influence the guardians to relinquish their rights of guardianship, especially Miss Sarah Shaw."
44. AD, box L581.M27L, no. 20, 1919.
45. AD, box L581.M27L, no. 21, June-July 1919.
46. AD, box L581.M27L, no. 110, 18 January 1929.
47. AD, box L581.M27L, no. 107.
48. AD, box L581.M27L, no. 23.
49. AD, box L581.M27L, no. 84.
50. Robert Choquette, "L'Histoire de l'Eglise de l'Ouest: hier et aujourd'hui," paper presented at the Fourth Western Oblate Studies Conference, Winnipeg, 25 August 1995. As well, whether one wrote for a public as opposed to a private audience made a difference to both style and content.
51. See, for example, the account of the meeting between Robert Rundle and Jesuit Father De Smet in Glenbow Archives, Robert Terrill Rundle Fonds,Journal.
52. Choquette, The Oblate Assault, 178.
53. Kerry Abel, Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993), 134.
54. Choquette, The Oblate Assault, 183.
55. Oblate Archives, Leach Journal.
56. Ibid.
57. United Church Archives, Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario, Personal Papers of Luther L. Schuetze, PP36, p. 23.
58. Oblate Archives, Leach Journal.
59. Schuetze, Personal Papers, p. 33.
60. See Jennifer S.H. Brown with Maureen Matthews, "Fair Wind: Medicine and Consolation Along the Berens River," The Journal of the Canadian Historical Association (1993): 67.
61. Schuetze, Personal Papers, p. 24.