THE FIRST MISSIONNARIES (263)
The first missionaries arrived in the North in the 1860's and worked especially in the region of Fort Yukon. In 1867 because the frontiers between Alaska and the Yukon were being established, Fort Yukon was in American territory and not in Canadian territory as had been believed. The Hudson Bay Company had to build a new commercial business more towards the east. Here are the three first Oblates in the Yukon:
Henri Grollier (O.M.I.) Henri Grolier arrived in the Yukon in 1860 with the intention of establishing a Catholic mission at Fort Yukon in order to teach the First Nations people. Struck by sickness, he had to forego his project and leave for Fort Good Hope, in the North-West Territories. Father Séguin took over in 1862.
(Note: before 1860 Henri Grollier worked at many places in the Territories. In 1858 he had gone as far as Aklavik on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and is still remembered as the first Oblate to the Great North.
EMILE PETITOT (O.M.I.)
As a catholic missionary, Emile Petitot spent some time in Fort Yukon around the years 1870. Since the First Nations people had only become acquainted with Protestantism, Father Petitot and Father Séguin were rather poorly received. During his life, Father Petitot continued his studies, communicated with the outside world, and published a good number of documents on the Native Peoples of Canada, especially those of the North-West. He died in 1917, aged 79.
ISIDORE CLUT (O.M.I.)
Born on February 11, 1832 at Saint-Rembert-sur-Rhone in France, Isidore Clut became the bishop of the diocese of Athabasca-MacKenzie. (Dawson City was once part of this district.) Bishop Clut wrote that François Mercier was the reason he came to the North at the beginning of the 1890's. In fact, Mercier wrote to his family in Montreal telling them that there should be catholic priests in the territory. The Mercier family transmitted this request to the mother house of the Oblates in Montreal. A short time later, Bishop Clut and Father Lecorre embarked on an expedition on the Yukon River up to Fort York. On October 14, 1882, Isidore Clut celebrated his first mass in the Yukon.
In 1989, his grand-nephew, Claude Roche in France, published a book entitled 'BISHOP CLUT OF THE GREAT NORTH'. This book is an interesting description of adventures inspired by Bishop Clut's note-books containing thousands of pages written by the Bishop himself between 1858 and 1903.
Ref. Empreinte p. 9-10
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