The good Father’s story circles around the first Canadian woman known to have reached Red River.  This was Marie Gaboury, wife of J. Baptiste Lajimoniere, who reached the Forks in 1811 in the very year when the Colonists were lying at York Factory.  The Lajimonieres spent the winter in Pembina.  It was the brave husband of Marie Gaboury who made the long and lonely journey from Red River to Montreal.  The Abbe says:  “J.B.  Lajimoniere was engaged by the Governor of Fort Douglas to carry letters to Lord Selkirk, who was then in Montreal.  Lajimoniere said he could go alone to Montreal, and that he would make every effort to put the letters confided to his care into Lord Selkirk’s hands.  Being alone, Madame Lajimoniere left the hut on the banks of the Assiniboine to become an inmate of Fort Douglas.  Lajimoniere is reported to have urged upon Lord Selkirk in Montreal to send as part of his recompense for his long journey, a priest to be the guide of himself and family.  Father Dugas says:  (See printed page 2.)

“Lord Selkirk before his departure had made the Catholic colony on the Red River sign a petition asking the Bishop of Quebec to send missionaries to evangelize the country.  He presented this petition himself and employed all his influence to have it granted.

“Though a Protestant Lord Selkirk knew that to found a permanent colony on the Red River he required the encouragement of religion.  Should his application succeed the missionaries would come with the voyageurs in the following spring and would arrive in Red River towards the month of July.  This thought alone made Madame Lajimoniere forget her eleven years of loneliness and sorrow.

“Before July the news had spread that the missionaries were coming that very summer, but as yet the exact date of their arrival was not known.  Telegraphs had not reached this region and moreover the voyageurs were often exposed to delays.

“After waiting patiently, one beautiful morning on the 16th of July, the day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a man came from the foot of the river to warn Fort Douglas and the neighborhood that two canoes bringing the missionaries were coming up the river, and that all the people ought to be at the Fort to receive them on their arrival.

“Scarcely was the news made known when men, women and children hurried to the Fort.  Those who had never seen the priests were anxious to contemplate these men of God of whom they had heard so much.  Madame Lajimoniere was not the last to hasten to the place where the missionaries would land.  She took all her little ones with her, the eldest of whom was Reine, then eleven years old.