Jesuit Diary Brings the Past to Life

Lakehead Professor Alain Nabarra with Newly Transcribed Diary of Jesuit Father du Ranquet

(November 1, 2011 " Thunder Bay, ON) Professor of French and Lakehead's former Chair of the Department of Languages, Alain Nabarra has recently transcribed and edited the diary of Fr. du Ranquet, considered one of the most important Canadian missionaries of the 19th century.

This previously unpublished 756 page manuscript spans over almost 25 years, from 1853 to 1877. This new volume publishes the first part of the Journal, 1853-1856, and includes a postface by John O'Meara, Dean of Lakehead's Faculty of Education. Extensive footnotes and appendices (Chronology, Glossary, Christian Terminology, Biographical Sketches, The 1854 Treaty with the Chippewa, The Hudson Bay Company) provide the reader with factual information to help comprehend the text and events.

Father Dominique Chardon du Ranquet was born in Chalus, in the French province of Auvergne, to an aristocratic Catholic family. He arrived in Canada in 1842 at the age of 29, and immediately began studying Native languages, especially Algonquin, with the Sulpicians in Oka, and among the Ojibwa bands at Sandwich. He then served on Walpole Island and at Wikwemikong, on Manitoulin Island, before being appointed, in 1852, to the Immaculate Conception Mission of Fort William.

Established on the bank on the Kaministiquia in 1849 and still active today, the Mission of the Immaculate Conception was the most western Jesuit Mission in Canada and headquarters for an extensive network of missionary activity spread over five hundred kilometres encompassing most of the north and northwest coast of Lake Superior and part of northern Minnesota. The Immaculate Conception Mission of Fort William was the starting point of Fr. du Ranquet's legendary "grands voyages."

For almost twenty-five years, Fr. du Ranquet set out annually to visit Aboriginal and white settlements over the immense territory of the Mission. He travelled lightly on snowshoes, on toboggan and on foot, by dog-sled or in a birch bark canoe, surviving by camping, fishing, and hunting. His journal is a first-hand record of what he saw and heard as he encountered Amerindians and the first Euro-Canadian settlers in the region: weather, routes, places, geographical features, camping conditions, new Algonquin words, as well as sketches of sermons, and reflections and comment on his missionary works.

Fr. du Ranquet's diary is `a missionary's data bank' and essential to the history of the Jesuit mission in Canada, but also important for its for historical, geographical and ethnological information. The diary is full of information on early establishments, economic developments, and social mutations during the second part of the 19th century - a time of great economic and social change in the Northwest.

The Robinson Treaty and the Treaty with the Chippewa had only just been signed, and an influx of white settlers came to the region to work in the fast developing mining, fishing, and forestry industries. Because documents that detail the Anishinaabeg people are rare, this journal is an invaluable record that details social usage and customs of daily life for the first white settlements and Aboriginal bands that populated the north shore. The journal contains information on the mostly oral Ojibwa culture, on their way of living and thinking, their beliefs, their language and regional dialects, their indigenous topography and toponymy, as well as regional dialects, family networks and patronyms.

Father du Ranquet's Journal is an invaluable ethnographic, linguistic, and historical resource that brings the past alive.

Du Ranquet, Dominique, sj. Journal de Mission: 1853-1856. Ft William, Ontario. Transcrit et édité par Alain Nabarra avec une postface de John O'Meara. Toronto: Hammerburg, 2011. Cartes, illustrations, notes, et index, 364 p.

(ISBN 978-0-9867710-1-0)

The book is available at the Lakehead University Bookstore bookstr@lakeheadu.ca

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Professor of French and former Chair, Department of Languages, Lakehead University, Alain Nabarra is a specialist of the 18th and 19th centuries. He collaborated on the Dictionnaire de la Presse d'Ancien-Régime. 1600-1789 (Oxford / Paris, 1991-1999; 2 t. in 4 vol.), authoring 51 articles and co-editing volume 3 and 4. He also transcribed and edited, in the same collection, Fr. du Ranquet's Journal for the years 1875-1876 and the Fort William Mission Journal for the years 1848-1852.

Professor and Dean, Faculty of Education, Lakehead University, John O'Meara has extensively researched dialects of Ojibwa spoken in northwestern Ontario, including publication of a volume of traditional stories, Ninoontaan: I can hear it. Ojibwa stories from Lansdowne House Written by Cecilia Sugarhead. Other research has been on Munsee Delaware, a related Algonquian language, including the publication of an important bilingual dictionary, Delaware-English/English-Delaware (University of Toronto Press, 1996).

The director and publisher of this collection, William Lonc, sj, Professor Emeritus, St. Mary's University, Halifax, is now attached to the Canadian Jesuit Institute in Toronto. He has translated and edited more than 30 books that deal with the early Jesuit Missions in Canada.

An English translation is forthcoming (in press): Du Ranquet, Dominique, sj. Mission Journal: 1853-1856. Ft William, Ontario. Transcribed and edited by Alain Nabarra, with a post face by John O'Meara. Translated by William Lonc, sj. Toronto: Hammerburg, 2011. 382 p. ISBN 978-0-9867719-2-7

Media: For more information please contact Janine Chiasson, Communications Officer, at 807-343-8177 or commun@lakeheadu.ca.

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