Saint-Boniface Cathedral Basilica

In 1818, two young Roman Catholic priests stepped ashore at Red River, after a grueling two-month journey through the wilderness from Quebec, to establish the first outpost of Christianity in the Northwest. One of them was named Joseph-Norbert Provencher (1787-1853). He constructed a small log chapel, which he dedicated to Saint Boniface, an English missionary monk who spread the Catholic faith among the early Germanic tribes in the 8th century A.D.

A proper church building in 1825 then replaced this chapel, which featured a bell tower. A twin towered church was then built in 1839 and was constructed of stone which rose over 100 feet high making it an impressive landmark on the prairie horizon. This third building was destroyed by fire in 1860 and another church built in 1863. This one became known as "Mgr. Taché's cathedral" in honor of Bishop Alexandre-Antonin Taché (1823-1894), the bishop who played a major role in the life of Louis Riel by sending him to school in Montreal when Louis was a boy of fourteen.

Saint-Boniface Cathedral Basilica (the one I remember from my childhood) was constructed in 1908 but it tragically burnt down on July 22nd, 1968, leaving only the façade. Architect Etienne Gaboury was able to incorporate the façade, sacristy and some of the walls of the former structure into the present futuristically designed cathedral, thereby linking the past with the present. It is the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in Western Canada.

Saint-Boniface Cathedral Cemetery

One of the most historically significant cemeteries in Western Canada, Saint-Boniface Cathedral Cemetery is the resting-place of some of Manitoba's most important historical figures including Bishops Provencher and Taché, Louis Riel, and Chief One Arrow.

The cathedral cemetery was founded around the same time as the building of the first Saint-Boniface chapel in 1818. In all probability, many of the voyageurs, missionaries and early settlers who played an important role in the building of the Canadian West are buried here. Sadly, little remains to mark the graves of these people, as most graves of that time were marked by humble wooden crosses (long gone) and all burial records were lost in the 1860 fire that destroyed the third Saint-Boniface Cathedral. Since that date, records indicate that at least six thousand people have been buried here of which approximately half were children under the age of six. This surprising number of children speaks directly to the hardships the early pioneers of Manitoba faced, as it was the children who were the first to succumb to disease and the hard realities of prairie winters. I took a picture of one headstone, which marked the resting-place of no less than six children, the oldest being two years of age, the youngest, 28 days! All of these children died during the 1890's.

The Prairies, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was a harsh and violent place. Métis buffalo hunters, Indians, English settlers, French-Canadians, powerful frontier trading companies, and American squatters all vied with one another for land, political rights, and money. Along the way, a passion and desire for unity and self-determination arose among the French-speaking Métis. In the maturing of that dream, a spokesman emerged whose childhood was heavily influenced by the folklore and songs of Métis nationalism and by the Roman Catholic Church. His name: Louis Riel, the man who pushed Canada to civil war during the Northwest Rebellion (1885), in standing up for the rights of his people.

Widely regarded as the Father of Manitoba, Louis Riel remains one of Canada's most colorful and controversial historical figures. As a staunch defender of Métis land and language rights against the encroachment of English settlers from Eastern Canada, Riel played a very pivotal role in negotiating Manitoba's entry into Confederation in 1870. He suggested the name "Manitoba" for the new province, which means "the god who speaks." When many of the rights Riel had won failed to be upheld by the Canadian government, causing confrontations between the Métis and the growing number of English settlers and government soldiers, most Métis left Manitoba. Riel himself had to go into exile and remained away from his homeland for ten years. Continued western expansion again brought Riel and the Métis into conflict with the Canadian government, culminating in a Métis defeat at the Northwest Rebellion's Battle of Batoche in Saskatchewan in May of 1885. Following the battle, Riel surrendered and hanged for high treason on November 16th, 1885. His body was returned to Saint-Boniface to be buried here.

In addition to Louis Riel, a large number of people buried in the cemetery are of Métis descent. Towards the end of the fur trade, the Métis became the dominant cultural group in the Canadian West, so much so that when Manitoba was founded in 1870, 85% of the population were French-Catholic Métis. Fifteen years later, the number drastically decreased to only 5% due to the massive arrival of English settlers with the resulting dispersion of the Métis westward to Saskatchewan, Alberta, and south to the United States.

As well as visiting the grave of Louis Riel, I wandered through the churchyard and observed many other interesting graves. Ambroise Didyme Lepine (1840-1923) is also buried here. He presided over the tribunal that executed Thomas Scott, an Ontario Orangeman who challenged the authority of the Riel provisional government during the Red River Resistance of 1869-70. Lepine paid for this action with a two-year prison sentence and the loss of his civil rights for the rest of his life.

Also buried in the churchyard cemetery are the grandparents of Louis Riel, Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière (1778-1855) and Marie-Anne Gaboury (1780-1875), who were the first French couple to live permanently in Western Canada. In 1815, with trouble brewing between the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company, Jean-Baptiste (a voyageur by trade) travelled to Montreal (mostly on foot) to warn Lord Selkirk of the problems in the Red River colony. For his efforts, he received a parcel of land in Saint-Boniface where he took up farming.

Louis Riel Senior, the father of Louis Riel, is also buried here in the churchyard. One thing puzzled me though, I could not find where Louis Riel's mother, Julie Lagimodière was buried. Her name does not appear on the gravemarker where his father is buried, although there are other members of the Lagimodière family buried under this same gravemarker. A mystery!

My morning in this tranquil place was a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours.