14

Assinaboine Camp
1870
Central Alberta


Credits:
National Library and Archives of Canada c081792

15

Gerald Hutchinson:
... This particular mission was a mission to the Stoney people. They lived on these eastern slopes, right up into the Pigeon Lake country. And so you couldn't do a mission further south [in Blackfoot territory]-that would be a "white" idea. And that was just not allowed to take root at that stage. So Rundle lived in Fort Edmonton. Initially, he came in with the authority of the Hudson's Bay Company and he had a restrictive lease as it were on all ministry. There weren't any other churches allowed into this country.

16

Fr. Jean Baptiste Thibault, OMI. (1810-1879).
1860
?


Credits:
Glenbow Archives NA-826-6

17

The Hudson's Bay Company thought that it could better control the Methodist missionaries and denied Roman Catholic missionaries entrance into its territory. In 1842, two years after Rundle's arrival, the first Catholic priest, Fr. Thibault, came to the territory, but was not permitted to enter Fort Edmonton.

Gerald Hutchinson:
...And so Father Lacombe was quoted as saying - I haven't seen this, but I have have been informed of it. In his books he said, "What a pity that all the Protestants that all the Indians south of Edmonton are Protestants," he said, "because Rundle got there first and baptized them all." And that traditionally has been true, that the First Nations of south central Alberta have been primarily Protestant.

18

While Rundle travelled throughout the Saskatchewan Region, Thibault focussed more on the home mission site. Each had their own followers and the area was large enough to not interfere with each other's work.