Though the
ministrations of religion were supplied within a few years of the
beginning of the Colony, yet the Colonists were not satisfied in this
respect till forty years had passed. It was a generation before the
Roman Catholic Church had a Bishop, who held the See of St. Boniface
instead of the title "in the parts of the heathen." It was not before
the year 1849 that a Church of England Bishop arrived, and it was two
years after that date when the first Presbyterian minister came to be
the spiritual head of the Selkirk Colonists. Before this the education
and elevation of the people was represented by a few schools chiefly
maintained by private or church effort. The writer intends to bring out,
from selected quotations from different sources, the few bright spots in
the gloom--the pictures of silver--on a rather dark background.
ABBE DUGAS' STORY.
The good Father's story circles around the first Canadian woman known to
have reached Red River. This was Marie Gaboury, wife of J. Baptiste
Lajimoniere, who reached the Forks in 1811 in the very year when the
Colonists were lying at York Factory. The Lajimonieres spent the winter
in Pembina. It was the brave husband of Marie Gaboury who made the long
and lonely journey from Red River to Montreal.
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