is now part of a privately owned farm. Photo taken on 17 May 2006. I thank George Klyne for the information about this site.
19 Maurice Cardinal, personal interview, 8 December 2006.
20 SAB, “Towards a New Past Oral History Project: The Metis,” A-821-A Ranger, Mrs. Adelaide, Batoche,
Christmas and Easter, as well as the summer months of July and August, were holidays that involved church. As adults, Métis recalled pleasant memories from the
North
6.1 The Lebret Métis Farm Plan, undated. The key supplied in this illustration is difficult to decipher, but Métis in the Qu’Appelle Valley noted that section numbers eleven, fourteen, fifteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-five were the pieces of land that belonged to the Farm when it was operated by the Oblates. I am grateful to Beverley Worsley for a copy of this map. The Oblates started the farm at the turn of the twentieth century as an Oblates of Mary Immaculate agricultural project; Oblate Fathers employed many Métis families as workers on this farm.21
Roman Catholic Church services they attended. Norma Welsh, also a Qu’Appelle Valley resident, enjoyed “midnight mass because…it seemed to be just about always we had to
walk to the church…from the Métis farm or where ever [sic] else we lived. It would snow…when we were walking to mass.”22 Christmas was a special occasion for many Métis families. It was a chance to renew family ties, and the festivities provided distinctive roles for children and youth. Pauline Anderson, Billie Robison, and Norma said that “people used to come and visit New Years…[and] We always got candy and stuff…Mom made sure we got something.”23
Joanna Potyondi, who spent her formative years in the Souris River Valley, agreed and added that on Christmas Eve, “a lot of our Ukrainian and German friends were at our door. The Ukrainians had their Christmas two weeks later, and we were there with all their breads and traditions, and I know a lot about our Ukrainians. I was very fortunate to grow up in that environment.”24 In southeast Saskatchewan, Christmas celebrations represented an opportunity for the Métis to socialize with the settler families of the local area and from the surrounding communities.
Peter Bishop talked about the non-Aboriginal southerners who spent Christmas in Green Lake and “bought Christmas presents for the children and produced a Christmas show for the children’s viewing.”25 He remembered “at one Christmas show when an announcement of Santa coming was made when Santa was at Uranium City, then at Buffalo Narrows, and then at Green Lake. However, when the Santa arrived at Green Lake, he was drunk, and therefore, the coordinators had to take twenty minutes to locate another Santa.”26
However, these children also knew that at Christmas, “we celebrated the birth of Jesus.”27 Peter believed that the non-Aboriginal settler society introduced the
commercial component of Christmas celebrations. For the Métis, although Christmas involved the sharing of dessert foods and candy, it was not a chance to exchange gifts. Instead, the celebrations represented the opportunity for Métis families to renew ties to the Creator.
22 Pauline Anderson, Billie Robison, and Norma Welsh. 23 Pauline Anderson, Billie Robison, and Norma Welsh. 24 Joanna Potyondi, personal interview, 30 January 2006. 25 Peter Bishop, personal interview, 19 October 2005. 26 Peter Bishop.
The spring and summer months brought Roman Catholic events that excited Saskatchewan’s Métis children and youth. Memories of Easter time preparations represented the convergence of past traditions with modern Church festivities.
Qu’Appelle Valley resident Pauline Anderson told of “growing up setting snares with my brother Ernie, and I caught a snare, and I started crying because I thought I killed the Easter Bunny.”28 Or the Priests, who would “come up the hill after we moved off the Métis Farm…and then we used to have…treasure hunts with them. I think this was at Easter time, and they’d hide the candies and things in the trees, in the bushes, and they’d make us go look for them.”29 During the summer, children “had catechism for two months.”30 The Priests took the children, by barge, to camp. “And we used to go to camp for maybe five or six days.”31 However, the summer camp was not exclusively tied to bible study in that “at the last day of catechism they’d…put on this great big barbeque with hotdogs and homemade ice cream and took us out on the boat. This one time we went out on the boat ourselves and got stuck out there. Somebody had to swim and get us.”32 The Priests “had canoes and sometimes we could use them.”33 Summer meant, in addition to work for farmers, trapping, hunting, and berry picking, significant Roman Catholic rituals that involved Métis, First Nations, and non-Aboriginal families.
In the Qu’Appelle Valley, the annual Corpus Christi Day attracted Roman Catholic residents from all over southeast Saskatchewan. Corpus Christi Day happened in late June and for the Métis children and youth of the Qu’Appelle Valley, it was the beginning of a summer filled with Roman Catholic teachings. Margaret Harrison, whose family resided near Lebret, recalled that
in Lebret you would see droves of people coming, wagons of people, and we would see them go by at Katepwa Lake, at our place. My grandparents lived there as well, and there was about five or six families living on the hill area and down by the lake as well and others around the other side of the lake. We would see these people come, and it was such a mystery and exciting for us to see Indians coming on this day because there would be wagonloads of people coming, and this was a holy day
28 Pauline Anderson, Billie Robison, and Norma Welsh.
29 “Anderson, Pauline, Robison, Billie, Welsh, Norma, Sullivan, Pat, and Welsh, Lawrence, Interview (3),”
The Virtual Museum of Metis History and Culture, retrieved 11 August 2007 from http://www.metismuseum.ca/media/document.php/05858.pdf.
30 Pauline Anderson, Billie Robison, and Norma Welsh.
31 Pauline Anderson, Billie Robison, Norma Welsh, Pat Sullivan, and Lawrence Welsh. 32 Pauline Anderson, Billie Robison, and Norma Welsh.
and celebrated in the Catholic Church. They would all meet at Lebret at the church, and then everybody would be picnicking, and there would be a mass. There would be a big supper in the church, and as a little kid I would wonder what it was like inside of the church, where they had all these different foods. But you had to have money to go in there. I don’t know what you paid for your meal, but you would have to buy your meal, and so we never could afford that. We never were allowed to go in there, to eat in the church, but mother always made such special things for that day and so did all the women because none of the Métis would go in the church in Lebret. They never could afford it, and the Indians never went in there either.34