One Hundred Years
One Hundred Years
1866-1966
For God and Canadian the North Peace
Oblates of Mary Immaculate
Fort St. John, BC
In archives of the Oblates at McLennan lies an ancient book of records. On one its musty and yellowed pages a single entry confirms that Fort St. John, centennial year was of double significance. For here in the North Peace, Christianity was also 100 years old.
“September 21, 1866. Arrived in late afternoon by company longboat poled and pulled by ten natives wearing harness. Celebrated Mass in thanksgiving and baptized 23, of whom 17 were Indians and the balance Metis”.
So wrote Bishop Faraud OMI in his entry in the record book. This first priest had arrived 73 years after the explorer Mackenzie and 60 years after Simon Fraser had established the first fort on the banks of the Peace at this point, naming it probably for his devoted lieutenant, John Stewart.
For the next quarter century an Oblate priest made a yearly visit here from Dunvegan. An Oblate traveled in the same riverboat with the first plow to come into the country, 1883. It was harnessed to thirty natives who broke with it a large garden plot on which to grow vegetables for the Company’s use. The church building itself came after the plow. It was erected at first as a house chapel in 1890. They called it St. Peter’s and it was aptly named. Seventy-five years later the foundations remain as solid as a rock. Over the years the church continued to follow the plow. When the Hudson’s Bay Company moved for the river to be nearer to the new settlers arriving in the twenties, so did the church – to Fish Creek.
“This day completed transaction with W. Easton for a small granary building on the edge of Fish Creek, Dimensions 12’x14’.”
Bishop Joussard OMI in making this notation did not say with his entry the entire Peace River block held only a little more than 500 white people at this time, nor that Fort St. John community boasted merely 140 of that total. He did say there were 13 baptisms that year. And old timers still about recall with nostalgia the simple beauty of the first sung Mass on Christmas eve, 1924, a joyous occasion.
As settlement continued, Fish Creek found itself on the perimeter of the community. The granary church by midnight mass in 1929 was jammed with people, and Father L. Beuglet’s announcements that night, suggested to the congregation that they look for a site for a larger church in the new townsite two miles east and make sure there was enough land with it in case some day a hospital would be needed.
A hospital, indeed, was already needed. Word spread rapidly and the result was a little ecumenical movement all its own, which started as a result. At a public meeting later that winter, C.M. Finch donated enough land to the Catholics to provide them with a church and cemetery site-as well as a hospital location- and at the same meeting later was elected to head a hospital operation in Fort. St. John since that time, Anglican people have retained this interest.
As the thrifty parishioners dismantled the granary at Fish Creek for further use in building at the new site, Father Feuglet launched a year-long sales campaign with the Sisters of Charity of Providence whose motherhouse was in Montreal. The hospital opened September 2 1931 with His Lordship Guy officiating to bless both hospital and church on the same day.
Eleven Oblate priests converged on Fort. St. John to assist the Bishop. Mr. M. S. Morrell, government agent at Pouce chaired the hospital ceremony. There were visiting church and government dignitaries as well as the pioneer doctors from all over the Peace. At the close of the afternoon, everyone went across the field to the new church, emptied for the occasion, and enjoyed an Altar Society’s chicken supper which included a suckling porker roasted whole. The dinner was a conversation piece and the first of an honourable line of such dinners – the classic fund-raising project in fort St. John ever since. “We are fortunate in the kitchen skills of our women as is usual in our pioneer settlements where our Canadian women have charge,” observed Father Beuglet proudly in his journal in 1931. Such an affair took place out at the sports grounds at Grandhaven in 1930 to provide money for the lumber needed to build a church. Later, it put materials into the hands of John Lohman and the other men of the parish with which would build a windbreak barn for the teams from the country; gasoline for the very old cars used during the summertime by the various parish priests; music books and candles, vestments and mass wine; warm boots and ‘overs’ and parkas for the clergy. No church hall existed in the early days, and the suppers were held in the town’s community hall or the dining room and the only hotel. One parishioner once emptied the pool hall for the occasion. The food was cooked at the home where cupboards were then emptied of table appointments and the lot loaded into the family wagon or sleigh for onward passage to town. The whole community turned out to the suppers. All you could eat for fifty cents!
When Mrs. J. J. Gillis of Prince Rupert came to organize the Catholic Women’s League in October, 1946, all she had to do was widen the horizons of the Altar Society, explain the national organization, partake of a splendid supper and leave the parish women to get on with the job. She was impressed with the vitality of Fort St. John. She had found here the church of the first Catholics with its horseshoe sanctuary, its steel rods holding the walls firmly, its commodious choir loft. The men and women sat separately on either side of the church but the choir and organist were a delight to hear. The parish house was a splendid looking modern home, courtesy of the men of the parish and American contractors who had been influenced at a chicken supper the winter before. He paid for his meal with a fifty-dollar bill and advised the stunned waitress to keep the change!
In fact legend says that the rectory followed on the heels of a visit from the Cardinal Spellman who made his traditional Yuletide visit to the troops in 1942 here on the Alaska Highway. Before leaving he called at the humble rear-of-church quarters of the local priest. Father was soaking his feet in a bucket of hot water as the rap came to the door. Damply, he squished over to open it. His dismay, according to a U.S. general accompanying the Cardinal, was obvious. The bare, dripping feet, and the imposing group at the door. The Cardinal didn’t bat an eye. Out shot the right hand. “The name’s Spellman, Father. How are you?” He looked down at the wet foot marks on the floor, and smiled. “May I add, ‘how beautiful are the feet of them who preach the gospel!”
Watch for more of our history. Our parish legacy from 1966 to the present is being worked on by our newly formed History Committee!!
