Île-à-la-Crosse () is a northern village in Division No. 18, northwestern

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

, and was the site of historic

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically a trading post allows people from one geogr ...

s first established in 1778. Île-à-la-Crosse is the second oldest community in

, Canada, following establishment of the

Red River Colony The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assiniboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hudson's Bay ...

in 1811. It sits at the end of a long peninsula on the western shore of

Lac Île-à-la-Crosse Lac Île-à-la-Crosse is a Y-shaped lake in the north-central region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan along the course of the Churchill River (Hudson Bay), Churchill River. At the centre of the "Y" ...

, and is linked with

Peter Pond Lake Peter Pond Lake is a glacial lake in the north-western part of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It is located in the Boreal forest of Canada, boreal forest and Canadian Shield within the Churchill Riv ...

(historically Buffalo Lake) and Churchill Lake (historically Clear Lake) through a series of interconnected lakes, rivers, and portage routes. The

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

and

Dene The Dene people () are an Indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal, subarctic and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages and it is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term ...

peoples who used these integrated passages of water named the respective mass of water and their community ''Sakitawak.'' This Cree name means “big opening where the waters meet.” The surrounding network of lakes were traditionally referred to as the headwaters of Missinipe, renamed in the fur trade era to English River, and currently identified as Churchill River. Île-à-la-Crosse occupies a central location in the Canadian

subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of hemiboreal regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Fennoscandia, Northwestern Russia, Siberia, and the Cair ...

region, positioned along the southern entryway to the

Methye Portage The Methye Portage or Portage La Loche in northwestern Saskatchewan was one of the most important portages in the old North American fur trade, fur trade route across Canada. The portage connected the Mackenzie River basin to rivers that ran east ...

which is a

continental divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

where waters flow to both the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

and the

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay, sometimes called Hudson's Bay (usually historically), is a large body of Saline water, saltwater in northeastern Canada with a surface area of . It is located north of Ontario, west of Quebec, northeast of Manitoba, and southeast o ...

. Île-à-la-Crosse is of exceptional historical note, given its prime access to

s located further within the

North-Western Territory The North-Western Territory was a region of British North America extant until 1870 and named for where it lay in relation to Rupert's Land. Because of the lack of development, exploration, and cartographic limits of the time, the exact boun ...

, which in turn promoted significant interest from both Catholic missionaries and

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

companies.

History

Historically, the area around ''Sakitawak'' acted as a border land between the territories of the

and

peoples. The positioning of Île-à-la-Crosse at the entryway to the English River District encouraged increasingly interdependent economic, social, and political activity. This strategic position helped establish the community as a meeting place that promoted the cultural and socio-economic exchanges of the Cree, Dene, Scots, English, French, and Metis peoples.

Fur trade

The intensely competitive fur trade shaped the community of Île-à-la-Crosse through the familial and business relationships formed between Indigenous inhabitants and European traders and created a district Métis community within northern Saskatchewan. Traders following depleting resources moved across the Plains northward and westward which made Île-à-la-Crosse a central place to organize trading from the

Northern Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include the mix ...

into a larger

global trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (See: World economy.) In most countries, such trade represents a significan ...

of furs and goods.

Early trading

In 1775, Thomas Frobisher joined a Dene hunting group to northern hunting territory; his expedition attempted to establish a passage from

Lake Athabasca Lake Athabasca ( ; French: ''lac Athabasca''; from Woods Cree: , " herethere are plants one after another") is in the north-west corner of Saskatchewan and the north-east corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake is ...

to the

. While unsuccessful in his mission he visited Île-à-la-Crosse, where he realized accessibility to routes further north through the

Athabasca River The Athabasca River (French: ''Rivière Athabasca'') in Alberta, Canada, originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is protected in nationa ...

and east through the English River to

. He built the first trading post during the winter of 1776. The following year, Thomas and Joseph Frobisher commissioned

Peter Pond Peter Pond (January 18, 1739 – 1807) was an American explorer, cartographer, merchant and soldier who was a founding member of the North West Company and the Beaver Club. Though he was born and died in Milford, Connecticut, most of his li ...

to chart a route from the post to Athabasca. In doing so, Pond helped establish a practice making Île-à-la-Crosse the central passageway and resting spot for those moving through the

. His trip was still used a century later by

voyageurs Voyageurs (; ) were 18th- and 19th-century French and later French Canadians and others who transported furs by canoe at the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the ...

going to the

. The area's name of English River District was after Thomas Frobisher as the first English speaker in the region. Frobisher's success attracted the attention of the independent voyageurs from Montreal who would later join with the Frobisher brothers and

Alexander Henry the Elder Alexander Henry 'The Elder', in French: ''Alexandre Henri Le Vieux'' (August 1739 – 4 April 1824) was an American-born explorer, author, merchant who settled in Quebec following the Conquest of New France (1758–1760), Conquest of New France a ...

, to form the

North West Company The North West Company was a Fur trade in Canada, Canadian fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada a ...

in 1783. The next year, the North West Company hired Patrick Small as the first trader at the post year-round, showing the significance of the village in handling administration for the larger district. The next post built was in 1785 by another group out of

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

under the control of Alexander Mackenzie. Competition caused spurs of violence in the region over the control of economic resources, escalating with the arrival of

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

. The late beginnings of Hudson's Bay Company in the North-Western Territory was due to a shortage of available voyageurs and the domination of the North West Company. It was not until 1791 a post was established and was operational year-round in 1799. The North West Company continued to rise to power up until the point of their merger with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821.

English River District

The 1821 Hudson's Bay Company merger made the trade post at Île-à-la-Crosse the administrative centre of the English River District. The administrative responsibilities ensured the surrounding outposts were given necessary provisioning and that its northern and southern entries remained accessible. The delegation as administrative centre positioned the post as a point of contact for the surrounding trading posts and would attract attention from missionaries. The centrality allowed for a concentration of social and economic relations creating conditions to become a Métis homeland because of the direct involvement of and relationality held by the children descending from

and

women and men of the fur trade. Due to the detailed administrative record keeping of both by officials in the area the growing Métis population was documented through a series of record-keeping instruments and distinguished the Métis of northwest Saskatchewan from those in the

. Starting after the establishment of the headquarters, the Hudson's Bay Company began trying to reduce the number of people posted to limit the amount of responsibility to support the trade families. This effort was never successful and the continuing presence of the Métis demonstrates their failure to do so. By 1856, the English River District encompassed trading posts in Green Lake, Rapid River, Portage La Loche, Cold Lake and Deer Lake on Reindeer Lake, however in the decades that followed many of these posts were no longer functioning because of settler encroachment, the sale of

Rupert's Land Rupert's Land (), or Prince Rupert's Land (), was a territory in British North America which comprised the Hudson Bay drainage basin. The right to "sole trade and commerce" over Rupert's Land was granted to Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), based a ...

, and the westward buffalo migration.

Catholic missionaries

In 1845, Chief Factor Roderick McKenzie wrote to Bishop Joseph-Norbert Provencher to request the establishment of a mission at Île-à-la-Crosse. The same year, Provencher received another letter from Jean-Baptiste Thibault, who perceived that it was urgent for the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

to send missionaries to Île-à-la-Crosse because of the eagerness of the Métis to convert and the imminent competition with Protestants. The Hudson’s Bay Company controlled the region outside the

, known as the

, through strict management of transportation systems leading to their established trading posts. This gave the company implicit control to confine missionary activities to the Red River Colony]. The ban remained in place until the decision by George Simpson (HBC administrator), George Simpson, the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, granted missionaries access prompting the Catholic mission network to extend into the North-Western Territory.

Saint-Jean-Baptiste Mission

In the context of expansion, the requests for a mission made by Chief Factor and Thibault were met in 1845 when the Oblate General Administration allowed the establishment of a mission presence in Île-à-la-Crosse.

Joseph-Bruno Guigues Joseph-Eugène-Bruno Guigues (; 26 August 1805 – 8 February 1874) was an Oblate priest, a teacher and became the first bishop of the diocese of Bytown (Ottawa) serving from (1847–1874). His consecration service in 1848 was performed by ...

, the superior Oblate General, chose the Fathers, Alexandre-Antonin Taché and Louis-François Richer Laflèche to set up the foundation for the mission. Taché and Laflèche arrived in September 1846, the pair were given a cabin left abandoned by the North West Company and began holding ceremonies the following spring. They operated the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Mission out of the single room cabin that functioned as both a dormitory and a mission . Later in 1848, a third Oblate Henri Faraud was sent to aid in the refurbishing of the cabin. The creation of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Mission functioned primarily to initiate the establishment of satellite missions. This process was done through the extensive travel of Father Taché who made regular visits to Green Lake, Reindeer Lake, Portage La Loche, and

Fort Chipewyan Fort Chipewyan , commonly referred to as Fort Chip, is an unincorporated hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada, within the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo. History Fort Chipewyan is one of the oldest European settlements in the Provi ...

. The missionary expansion throughout the North-Western Territory necessitated permanent funding separate from that paid to Bishop Provencher. The financial independence gave the responsibility to Saint-Jean-Baptiste Mission as the administrative base for the entirety of the North-West Territory. Furthermore, Alexandre-Antonin Taché became the first Oblate superior of Rupert`s Land and the North-Western Territory. In order to manage the increasing workload of both running the mission in Île-à-la-Crosse and satellite missions, four more Oblates were sent. Henri Grollier arriving in 1852 and sent to

and Fond-du-Lac, Valentin Végréville arriving in 1853 to establish a mission at Cold Lake, René Rémas arriving the same year sent to set up the Lac La Biche Mission, and finally

Vital-Justin Grandin Vital-Justin Grandin (8 February 1829 – 3 June 1902) was a Roman Catholic priest and bishop. He has been labelled as a key architect of the Canadian Indian residential school system by contemporary news sources, which has been considered an i ...

arriving in 1855 for the purpose of helping Henri Faraud and Henri Grollier. More assistance was given by selected

lay brother Lay brother is a largely extinct term referring to religious brothers, particularly in the Catholic Church, who focused upon manual service and secular matters, and were distinguished from choir monks or friars in that they did not pray in choi ...

s with the first being Louis Dubé followed by Patrick Bowes and Louis Boisramé who were able to construct a residence for missionaries. The Oblates enlisted the help of the Grey Nuns (Sisters of Charity of Montreal) to cope under the mounting pressure to operate facilities at the Saint-Jean-Baptiste mission, extending influence to satellite missions, and supplying resources to surrounding missions. By 1860, Saint-Jean Baptiste began to act as resource depot administering food, clothing, and other items to surrounding posts. Saint-Jean-Baptiste also became a

transshipment Transshipment, trans-shipment or transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, then to another destination. One possible reason for transshipment is to change the means of transport during the journey (e.g. ...

point for both manufactured goods and religious items sent from the Red River Colony and a conduit for communication into the disparate missions in the North. This continued until reoccurring fires and misfortunes struck the mission in 1867, depleting the mission of necessary resources needed to fulfill its administrative duties.

Le Couvent Saint-Bruno

The Sisters of Charity of Montreal, known as the Grey Nuns, arrived at Île-à-la-Crosse on October 4, 1860. Three sisters were sent after the Oblates request for assistance, including Sister Agnès (born Marie-Rose Caron), Sister Philomène Boucher, and Sister Pepin (born Marie-Anne Lachance). The name Saint Bruno Convent was given a few days after their arrival with a blessed day of feast for Saint-Bruno. The mission had started the operation of a day school in 1847, however, the school had poor and irregular attendance and encouraged the enlistment of the Grey Nuns to establish a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

. On November 25, 1860, the Sisters of Charity established the boarding school located within the Saint Bruno Convent that served to both educate and provide medical services. A fire engulfed the building March 1, 1867, after which the entirety of the infrastructure was lost and needed to be rebuilt. In 1874, a new school building was constructed and named Notre-Dame du Sacré Cœur The Sisters of Charity would eventually temporarily relocate and return in 1917, to establish another school called the School of the Holy Family.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Île-à-la-Crosse had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. In the 2016 census, 985 or 77% of respondents self identified as being Métis peoples with another 18% identifying as

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

, and 1.2% who identified as having Multiple Aboriginal responses. Within the northern village, 98.4% of residents are English speakers only, 18% speak

Indigenous languages An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by its indigenous peoples. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is both an indigeno ...

, most prominently 18% of those are speakers of

Algonquian languages The Algonquian languages ( ; also Algonkian) are a family of Indigenous languages of the Americas and most of the languages in the Algic language family are included in the group. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from ...

, and 7.4% identify as being

Michif Michif (also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif, French Cree) is one of the languages of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations (mainly Cree, Nakota, and Ojibwe) and fur trade wo ...

speakers. The remote location of the northern village causes the population to be seasonally variant and many are drawn outside of the community for employment. It is therefore relevant to consider the number private dwellings occupied by usual residents to obtain an understanding of the size of the community, these numbers are 406, 425, and 408 for 2016, 2011, and 2006 respectively.

Language

Northern Michif

The language spoken by those from Île-à-la-Crosse is distinct in its roots and is centred in the language of Northern Plains Cree with borrowing from mission and

Métis French Métis French () is one of the traditional languages of the Métis people along with Michif and Bungi, and is the French-dialect source of Michif. Features Métis French is a variety of Canadian French with some added characters such as Ññ ...

. Rather than a perfectly mixed language, the dialect of

spoken in northern Saskatchewan relies heavily on Plains Cree origins because of the wide spread knowledge of the Cree language compared to French. The language was developed as a means of communicating throughout the communities located in-between Île-à-la-Crosse, Green Lake, and Buffalo Narrows. Historically the language has been referred to as Cree without distinction from the language it derived from, however, in recent decades the language has been acknowledged as being a variant of

. Modern speakers of Northern Michif have taken to substituting English words for those historically substituted with French because of the majority English speaking population.

Education

Boarding school (1860–1972)

Enrollment in the

run by the Sisters of Charity began with nine girls and six boys in 1860, which increased to seventeen students in 1862, nineteen in 1863, twenty-two in 1864, twenty-eight in 1865, and thirty in 1866. In the beginning years, complaints surfaced that the children were not progressing in developing their language skills and instead persisted in speaking the

Cree language Cree ( ; also known as Cree–Montagnais language, Montagnais–Naskapi language, Naskapi) is a dialect continuum of Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 86,475 people across Canada in 2021, from the Northwest Territories to Alberta to ...

. The school was known to suffer from health issues and food shortages, that Oblates blamed on the absence of federal funding. After the 1867 fire burned the boys dormitory the school closed until 1874. While parents were concerned with negligence and harsh treatment of children, Sara Riel, a Grey Nun involved in the school, wrote to her brother

Louis Riel Louis Riel (; ; 22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885) was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political leader of the Métis in Canada, Métis people. He led two resistance movements against the Government of ...

that she felt parents were not appreciative of the teaching services especially language training. English lessons were dropped from curriculum in 1876. The school temporarily was relocated to the Beauval Indian Residential School at Lac la Plonge, but returned in 1917 when the Grey Nuns renamed the operation the School of the Holy Family. Fires subsequently occurred in both 1920 and 1921. However, instruction continued in the following years. In 1929, registration at the School of the Holy Family rose to forty-two. A provincial report released in 1944 on the state of education in northern Saskatchewan, called for the reorganization of students into more day schools with establishing two new large boarding schools. Neither proposal was successful, however, the Sisters of Charity did open a school in a larger building by 1946. More fires in 1964 and again in 1972 eventually lead to the complete closure of the church-run schools that were replaced with the current Rossignol Elementary and Rossignol High School.

Contemporary schools (1972–present)

Île-à-la-Crosse has two schools: Rossignol Elementary Community School (Pre-K to Grade 6), designed by architect

Douglas Cardinal Douglas Joseph Cardinal (born 7 March 1934) is a Canadian architect based in Ottawa, Ontario. His architecture is influenced by his Indigenous heritage, as well as European Expressionist architecture.

; and Rossignol High School (Grades 7-12) located in the Île-à-la-Crosse Integrated Services Centre, a large complex which also includes a hospital, a daycare, senior's care and offices. The schools are within the Île-à-la-Crosse School Division No. 112.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ile-A-La-Crosse Division No. 18, Saskatchewan Hudson's Bay Company forts National Historic Sites in Saskatchewan Northern villages in Saskatchewan