Report on the Indian schools of Manitoba and the North-West Territories

BY P. H. BRYCE, M. A., M. D.
Chief Medical Officer, Department of Indian Affairs.
OTTAWA GOVERNMENT PRINTING BUREAU 1907
Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, June 19, 1907.
Frank Pedley, Esq., Deputy Supt. General of Indian Affairs, Ottawa.
Sir,—I have the honour to submit my report on the Indian schools of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
Your obedient servant, P. H. BRYCE, Chief Medical Officer .
The story of the early explorations and of the trading adventures of the French and English on the plains of the great Northwest has ever been one of exceeding interest to the people of Canada; but while filled with romance and important as illustrating how the great domain has gradually been brought under the dominion of the British Crown, it nevertheless is largely lacking as a record of the more silent, yet more potent, influences which for over a century have been at work transforming the Indian aborigines into members of a civilized society and loyal subjects of the King. Restrained through diplomacy, force and the interests of trade by the great fur-trading companies, the widely distributed and wandering bands of Indians would still have been savages, had it not been for the heroic devotion of those missionaries who, attaching themselves to some band, moved with it in its wanderings, or travelled from post to post where the Indians were assembled while bartering their furs.
The evolution of schools amongst the Indian population of the Northwest naturally begins with the efforts of the early missionaries to obtain an influence over the Indians through the education and guidance of the children. The Roman Catholic Church as early as 1817 sent its first missionary into this extensive region and its work has been extended to far within the Arctic Circle, reaching even to the Northern Ocean. Co-incident with its work has been that of the Church of England, whose missionaries, locating near some Hudson’s Bay Company’s trading post, have covered, through the work of the Church of England Missionary Society, the entire Northwest to Fort McPherson and the Yukon. To illustrate—the first Anglican mission was established at Winnipeg in 1820, Dynevor in 1833, Cumberland in 1840, Lac la Ronge in 1840, Battleford in 1876, the Blood Mission in 1880, Fort Simpson in 1858, Fort McPherson in 1874, and Rampart House in 1882. The British Methodist Church began its labours by establishing missions on Lake Winnipeg at Norway House and Berens River in 1856, gradually extending westward as far as the Stony reserve in the foothills of the Rockies. The Presbyterian Church, latest in the field, started a mission at Prince Albert in 1867. The stories of hardship and of danger endured by these missionaries of the Cross have been but incidentally told, but the results are shown in the list of missions and of day schools in existence when this enormous territory passed into the hands of the Dominion of Canada in 1870. The lists are very incomplete, but a published report shows that 20 Roman Catholic schools and 5 Church of England schools received in 1877 some financial aid from the Dominion government. The following statement, taken from a report published in 1897, gives the total grants made by the government to the schools of the different churches in the years 1877, 1886, 1896 and 1906:—