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Sign from St. Gabriel's Hospital, only remaining part of structure.
29 October 2009
Heritage Park, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Fort McMurray Historical Society

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Welcome to the Hôpital St. Gabriel!

The Hôpital St. Gabriel, or St. Gabriel's Hospital, was the second hospital in Fort McMurray. It was administrated by the Grey Nuns of Montreal. From 1938-1966, this was the community's only hospital, and it continued to serve as a chronic care facility until 1972. The Hospital was important to the community not only as a medical centre, but also as a source of local employment and as a resource for the community's poorer members.

Today Fort McMurray's Heritage Park has the hospital sign, the only remaining part of the structure. Heritage Park also features an exhibit devoted to the hospital and the Grey Nuns.

Note that in this storyline, the names l'Hôpital Saint Gabriel and St. Gabriel's Hospital will be used interchangeably.

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Dr. George Ings and two women in front of building
circa 1921
Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Bob Duncan
Mrs Harry Halliday
Fort McMurray Historical Society

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Fort McMurray Before the Hospital

Before the arrival of medical professionals, residents of Fort McMurray and the surrounding area had to make their own treatments for illnesses and injuries. Anyone with a little bit of medical knowledge was a consultant on these matters. Christina Gordon, the first white women to live permanently in the area, was one such person. She learned how to splint a broken arm, lower a fever, and mix herbal remedies from a home nursing book that she had brought with her from Scotland. She remained in Fort McMurray until her death in the 1940s. Caroline Desjarlais was one of Fort McMurray's early and unofficial midwives, arriving in 1911. She charged nothing for a delivery and could speak to the Aboriginal women in Cree. When Dr. George Ings arrived (see below), he charged $25 for a delivery, so many poorer residents still turned to Desjarlais for aid. Since she did not accept payment, she often received anonymous gifts of moose or rabbit meat. Desjarlais remained in Fort McMurray until her death in 1958.

Angus Sutherland was the first person in Fort McMurray with professional medical knowledge, having studied Pharmacy at the University of Winnipeg. He came to Fort McMurray in 1918 as the Northern Trading Company's business manager, a position entirely unrelated to his degree. Residents found out about his education, however, and turned to him when the Spanish influenza pandemic struck. He ordered and stockpiled supplies, saving lives and often providing medicine for free to people who could not afford to pay. After this, he decided to open a pharmacy in the Franklin Hotel, located where the Oilsands Hotel is today. Business increased, and in the early 1920s he opened a two-story drug store and residence called Sutherland Drugs next to the hotel. As a pharmacist in the early 20th century, Sutherland prescribed as well as dispensed medicine, and he might have compounded up to 80% of it himself. Locals often asked him to help in dentistry, baby delivery, and bone-setting.

The Presbyterian Church established a two-bed nursing station, which was run by Nurse Olive (Dolly) Ross in the 1920s. This nursing station was the first hospital in the region.

Dr. George Ings served as a doctor across the whole of northern Alberta from 1921 to 1933. He was the first physician to serve in Fort McMurray.

While these individuals and institutions were helpful and important, the community was growing too quickly. There were too many smaller communities in the area turning to Fort McMurray for aid. Fort McMurray needed a hospital, and citizens began petitioning for one as early as 1915. In the 1930s, with the population still increasing, citizens started what became a six-year campaign to get a "Sister's Hospital" run by the Grey Nuns of Montreal. Eventually, Bishop Gabriel Breynat agreed, on the condition that the community open a Catholic School.

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Christina Gordon with produce
October 1914
Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Fort McMurray Historical Society

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Hill Drugs, formerly Sutherland's Drugs, at Heritage Park
9 November 2009
Heritage Park, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Suzanne Braat

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The Beginning of the Grey Nuns

Marguerite d'Youville and three other women vowed their lives to the services of God in Montreal on 31 December 1737, becoming the first religious congregation (in this context, an organization of nuns or monks) in Canada. They devoted themselves to helping those in need, calling themselves The Sisters of Charity, the Grey Nuns of Montreal, or Les Souers Grises. In 1747, they petitioned to administrate the General Hospital of Montreal, which was at that point in a state of disrepair. The civil authorities grudgingly ceded control. In the old building the Sisters cared for the sick, particularly those unable to pay for medical services. Both the civil authorities and Montreal's citizens opposed the Sisters' mission. The Nuns were spit on in the street. When they went door-to-door begging for funds to give executed criminals a proper burial, they would sometimes have stones thrown at them. Marguerite d'Youville's family tried to dissuade her from her vocation. They thought a woman of her upper-class breeding should not be in the company of criminals or poor and sick people. They were afraid she would tarnish the family's reputation.

When the hospital burned down, the civil authorities tried to prevent it from being rebuilt. The Nuns had supporters, however, and with outside help the Sisters built a new hospital in its place. But it was not just a hospital. It also served as a convent and as a refuge for people who were considered unacceptable in early Canadian society: the homeless, people with disabilities, wounded soldiers, orphans and foundlings, widows, prostitutes fleeing the streets, and single mothers. As the Nuns' reputation and numbers grew, they began to open satellite hospitals in western Canada.

In 1755 they received official approval of their commitment from Rome and began wearing religious symbols and garb. Pope Pius IX approved their organization as an Apostolic Congregation in 1865. They wore a distinctive uniform unlike other organizations of Nuns, making them instantly recognizable.

As helpers of those in need, the Nuns learned a number of roles and skills. They became teachers, principals, and counsellors in schools, and they became nurses, x-ray and lab technicians, dentists, doctors, undertakers, and midwives in hospitals. Some nuns were also secretaries, sacristans, catechists, pastoral ministers, authors, childcare workers, musicians, weather recorders, housekeepers, bakers, dieticians, gardeners, seamstresses, librarians, police escorts, barbers, drivers, and translators. They wrote letters for those who were illiterate, they carried water, and they cared for children. Most of all, they were advocates for the poor, the homeless, the abused, and the victims of family violence.

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Sister Adjutor of the Grey Nuns of Montreal
1937

TEXT ATTACHMENT


Credits:
Les Soeurs de la Charité de Montréal, "Soeurs Grises" (The Grey Nuns of Montreal)

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The Grey Nuns Go West

Seeing that their work with the poor in Quebec was succeeding, the Nuns turned their attention to Canada's western frontier. Traveling with the Oblate missionaries, they moved into what later became Canada's prairie provinces, then considered harsh, unsettled, and wild country. Thus, in 1818, the Nuns established their first western mission--St. Boniface--in Manitoba. This would be the location of the first hospital in western Canada, built in 1871.

In 1859, the Nuns established their first mission in what would later become Alberta, and followed clergymen into remote areas and outposts, bringing with them mobile educational and medical services for fur traders and their families. Bishop Alexander Taché called the Grey Nuns in 1867 to go north to open schools and hospitals. This mission took them into the Yukon and the Northwest Territories--including what is now Nunavut--where they were often the first non-aboriginal people with medical skills.

Most of the nuns had grown up in Europe or Quebec and in urban areas, making them inexperienced in the north- western climate and the frontier environment. Despite lacking any guarantee of basic life necessities, they persevered. Their western mission was to help frontier settlements, which meant they usually left a community once it was large enough to support its own schools and hospital. Over 300 nuns served in northern and western Canada, making them an organized and recognizable presence in this area's history.

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Sisters Adjutor, Nadeau, and Roberge in front of St. Gabriel's Hospital
circa 1939
St. Gabriel's Hospital and outbuildings, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Les Soeurs de la Charité de Montréal, "Soeurs Grises" (The Grey Nuns of Montreal)

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The Grey Nuns Arrive

In 1938, Sisters Marie-Rose-Anna Henri, Aldéa Roberge, Marie Nadeau, and Eva Bouchard (Cook, Nurse, Local Superior, and Nurse, respectively), arrived at Hôpital Saint Gabriel. They were provided with room and board and wages of $50 annually, though they always returned their wages to the Hospital budget, essentially working without pay. Because the nuns spoke French they gave the hospital a French name (Hôpital Saint Gabriel); however, in order to communicate with patients, doctors, and local staff, the nuns had to learn English through immersion. As it turns out, the doctors learned French at the same time.

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Sister Marie Nadeau in Fort Smith
1937
Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada


Credits:
Les Soeurs de la Charité de Montréal, "Soeurs Grises" (The Grey Nuns of Montreal)

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Building and Opening

Brother Laurant Bruyère directed the lay brothers as they built the new hospital beginning on 28 July 1937. The nuns called it l'Hôpital Saint Gabriel after Bishop Gabriel Breynat's namesake. The new hospital was located on the corner of Franklin Avenue and what is now called Hardin Street. Reverend Father Chouinard, the first Administrator of the hospital, blessed the cornerstone 1 September 1937. Over the course of its construction, the hospital received donations from a number of charities, corporations, and entrepreneurs, including the Catholic Women's League, the Ryan Brothers, the McMurray Salt Plant, Doctor Blais, Northern Transportation, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Cooper Corporation of Edmonton. Bishop Piché lent and fundraised much of the funding for St. Gabriel's. The hospital received the Stations of the Cross from St. Mary's Hospital in Montreal, and the Sisters inaugurated the Stations into the hospital chapel on 7 February 1938.

The hospital opened on 24 May 1938. However, before this date the hospital had already been used. On 16 May 1938, Rachel Bourque was going into labour. Dr. Malcolm "Rick" McCallum and Sister Marie Nadeau, resident doctor and Superior of the Hospital respectively, decided that Mrs. Bourque and her family should go to the hospital, even though there were no beds yet available. Brother Bruyère quickly assembled a bed and mattress, and they covered it with waxed carpet and thick wrapping paper, as the usual rubber cover was unavailable. Dr. McCallum could not make it to the hospital due to another emergency and he instructed Sister Nadeau to deliver the child herself. At 11 pm, Rachel Bourque gave birth to a baby boy, but passed away herself near midnight.

The boy was one month premature. The Sisters baptized him, and his family named him Joseph Gabriel Gerard Bourque, in part after the hospital. Joseph Bourque survived. The Nuns, in the midst of preparing for the hospital's opening, had delivered their first baby. But they also had to console and counsel his father and nine siblings.

The hospital opened officially on 24 May 1938, and Bishop Breynat blessed it at this time. In its first year, the hospital admitted 152 patients, performed 27 surgical operations, filled 63 prescriptions, applied 657 bandages, and had 4 deaths.

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Part of the Corpus Christi porcession, with altar made on hospital steps of St. Gabriel's Hospital
1941
St. Gabriel's Hospital and outbuildings, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
TEXT ATTACHMENT


Credits:
Mary O'Coffey
Fort McMurray Historical Society