PETITOT, Father EMILE, O.M.I. (37 ENG. -- 35 FRAN)

EMILE PETITOT -   (Blogue 37)

EMILE  -son of  Jean Baptist + Thérèse Julie Fortunée
        - b. 1838-12-03 at Grancy-le-Château, Cote d'Or, France
        - d. 1917-05-13 at  Mareuil-les-Meaux, France
        - arrived as a  missionary for the Far North in 1862
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It was during his first trip to Canada in May 1862 that Emile Petitot met his friend  Emile Grouard on the train from Montreal to St. Boniface, suburb of Winnipeg.  It should be noted that during these years, because of the Great Lakes, that the railroad had to detour through some American states up to Minnesota.  From St. Paul the capital of Minnesota, the train headed directly north to St. Boniface. This trip was also the first for Emile Grouard. Both F

renchmen, both newly ordained as priests, Emile Petitot's ordination had been held at Marseille, France, and Emile Grouard was ordained in Boucherville, Quebec.

Both Emiles were happy to meet each other for they had a lot in common; also they learned that Emile Petitot would become Emile Grouard's tutor in the Oblate noviciate. Once arrived in St. Boniface, the two travelers were eager to leave as soon as possible for Fort Chipwyan (NWT). However once arrived at the Fort, life changed: Emile Petitot went to Fort Providence recently founded and Emile Grouard stayed one year in Fort Chipwyan. The two Emiles did not see each other too often.  Emile Petitot finished his studies at the noviciate and became an Oblate  on November 21, 1863 at Fort Chipwyan.   The two men soon understood, even though they had not discussed this, that they were very different.  It is probably why they were rarely seen together.

Concerning Father Petitot, this man's mind was always full of interesting and challenging ideas. Emile Petitot wanted to go farther north and west.  He dwelt at Fort Good Hope for about nine years, and during this time he worked on a dictionary of seven First Peoples' languages.  He completed and made four manuscripts on pages measuring 2 feet by 3 feet (1/3m by 1m), not exactly small pages! (It's Father Gaston Montmigny who showed and explained them to me.  I have no doubt that he spent hours upon  hours on this, a project similar to those done by  monks in medieval monasteries, but for an intelligent person as  Father Petitot was, time meant nothing; the product was what was valued. M. B.)

Emile Petitot often told his superiors that he wanted to be sent to a far distant mission: Fort Good Hope was far, but not far enough.  At Fort Good Hope, he wrote a book, a sort of autobiography which is full of his own artistic   illustrations, a book of great value for collectors of rare books.  Over and above this work, Father Petitot was still not completely happy at Fort Good Hope.  Distance from others was of no importance; it was his companions which he found difficult to deal with.  As with many great thinkers, he felt he could not have interesting conversations with those he lived with. One day he decided to see as much as possible of this distant land.  With his dogs, he travelled far and wide and after weeks and months, he Father Petitot did not hesitate; he rose and asked to speak and protested  the assertions made by the Parisian professor and promised to bring proof the next day to the audience in the hall .

Father Petitot did not waste time: with piles of paper and bottles of ink and three-four secretaries found among the novices, he spent a good part of the night organizing his notes.  The next day, he was there with an arsenal of solid facts. The ducal salon was full of people impatient to hear this missionary, who had spent twelve years among the Natives of America, who had learned their language, who had traveled their land right up to the Frozen Northern Ocean, penetrated into Alaska, visited nations the farthest north, even visited the Inuit (Esquimaux) neighbors to the North Pole and had been in relationship with the "Echoutchis" on the reached the Yukon, and finally Alaska where he found that the evangelization of the people had just started.  Jesuit priests had been there for some time; Alaska the land, still belonged to Russia. Father Petitot arrived in Alaska in 1870 before Bishop Clut and before Bishop Lecorre, but a few years after Father Séquin.  It was a true delight to live there, and he was satisfied and happy, because the questions he had had for a long time were beginning to find answers. He documented everything he could on paper. (This information is found in the book "En Alaska")

In 1875 and 1876, Emile Grouard and Emile Petitot found themselves both in France.  They stayed at the Oblate noviciate.  In July, "We were told that an international congress on the Americans was to be held in Nancy.   There would be a report on the history and the ethnography of the native races in the New World      prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. One wondered what was going to be said." The two Emiles received permission from their superiors to assist at the great Congress.

The Congress took place in a vast hall of the ducal palace.  Many scholarly people from all corners of the world were there.  Right at the beginning of the lectures, a Japanese linguistic professor, Professor de Rosny, dressed in robes covered with academic decorations and distinguishing insignia, read a pompous report. In it he declared that science would finally chase away the heavy darkness wherein many questions still lingered, one of which was the origin of the Americans!   He tried to prove that the Americans did not descend from any other human race.

other side of the Bering Strait. All this proved not only that there was a possibility but even an ease with which one could move from Asia to America.

Father Petitot presented his proofs with drawings and artwork which added to their credibility; all this was done in excellent French.  When he ended his long discourse, the auditorium erupted in such a way that Professor de Rosny had to admit defeat.

Ref: mcb with quotations in the last four paragraphs from the book, "Souvenirs de mes Soixante ans d'Apostolat par Emile Grouard"