In 17th Century New France, a class of entrepreneurs emerged commonly called voyageurs. They were hired to travel as guides and paddlers. A typical voyageur was short, strong, and French-Canadian. They wore fur hats or red toques, deerskin leggings and moccasins, a hooded coat, and an intricately woven utility belt called a sash. Voyageurs were essential to exploration and trade, and they were mainstays in the Northwest Company in particular. The canoe brigades of Voyageurs often traveled twelve hour days over thousands of kilometers using songs to regulate the tempo of the paddles. When rivers were impassable, they carried their canoes and cargo over treacherous terrain in “portages”. They would winter in the North West, becoming the first Francophones in Western Canada. These winterers and freemen (without contractual obligations) and their relationships with First Nations would eventually give birth to a new indigenous people — the Métis nation.
The Métis nation
English traders and French-speaking voyageurs used different methods to obtain goods from First Nations. The English Hudson’s Bay Company tended to build large fortified outposts on Hudson’s Bay to receive delegations bringing furs. While the Canadien and French voyageurs plunged further inland and established diplomatic and economic ties with First Nations bands. It was common practice for a voyageur to settle for the winter and enter into a “Country Marriage” with an indigenous woman who stayed in her community to raise their children. They learned traditional knowledge from their mother and followed religious and language instruction through the influence of the father. Gradually, these relationships have rise to a generation of Métis people with a unique blended identity. In the example of language, a Métis may speak nehiyawawin (Cree) or Ojibwe, French, or an amalgam called Michif. Eventually, a diverse Métis nation with its own political and economic agenda emerged. The most famous Métis man in history is Louis Riel, hanged for treason after bringing Manitoba and the North West into Canada into an attempt to protect Métis language, religious and property rights.
Missionaries
As the fur trade and colonisation expanded, the Catholic Church took on the mission of keeping Catholics on the right path, and converting Indigenous peoples to their faith. After multiple pleas from Canadien Freemen such as Joseph Cardinal for priests around Lac La Biche and Edmonton to administer sacraments, Fathers Modeste Demers and François-Norbert Blanchet passed through the areas and confirmed the high demand by performing many baptisms and marriages. The Chief Factor of Fort Edmonton requested a permanent mission in 1838 and 1841, and Jean-Baptiste Thibault was sent in 1842, and established the first Catholic mission in Alberta in 1844 at Lac Sainte-Anne (moved to St. Albert in 1856). Several Catholic missions were established in Edmonton, Lac La Biche, Fort Chipewyan, Calgary, among many others from the 1850s to the 1880s. These missions formed the basis for permanent Métis and Francophone communities from that time forward. Even though the first Catholic missionaries were secular priests, over time the vast majority were members of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.