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C

uré François-Xavier Antoine Labelle promoted a vision of rapid colonisation of the North-West. He envisaged French- Catholic parishes from St. Jerome north-west, through present-day northern Ontario, all the way to Winnipeg. He spoke with conviction and authority. A tall, energetic and imposing man, well over six feet and weighing more than 300 pounds, he was rarely contradicted. Wherever he was, when he spoke of his dream, people followed. He became known as L'Apôtre de la Colonisation and Le Roi du Nord. He was so positive and convinced of his mission that people were in awe of him. Among Labelle's companions was Narcisse Ménard, the first homesteader in Morin Township. He was also over six feet tall. These were big men whose presence was felt. One can imagine that their arrival in a village was an event.

Among his friends, Labelle could boast both Adolphe Chapleau, Prime Minister MacDonald's Quebec leader, and Honoré Mercier, the Premier of Quebec. How the son of a shoemaker from an outlying village became the intimate of such powerful men may be less a testimonial to our democracy than a demonstration of the great charm and energy of the man himself. He never lost sight of his vision. He knew that his north country needed the train, a proposal that had been repeatedly refused in Montreal. In 1868 it did not even extend to St. Jerome.

In the winter of 1871-72, Montreal experienced a firewood shortage. Labelle, seeing an opportunity to demonstrate how valuable the St. Jerome region could be to Montreal, organised a huge bee to collect firewood for the poorer families in Montreal. All the local farmers participated, driving their sleds behind horses to the big city. Not surprisingly, the city of Montreal contributed a million dollars towards the construction of the rail line to St. Jerome in the following years.

To Labelle, this was only a first step in his plans to have the train run right through his colony. He made repeated trips up the Chemin de la Repousse, helping to establish the village of La Repousse, (subsequently renamed St. Faustin), in 1870 and St. Jovite in 1875. The discovery of the fertile valley of the Red and Devil rivers spurred him on and by 1881, 200 families had made their way over the notorious hill of La Repousse to find homes in this new area. Serge Laurin points out in his book Histoire des Laurentides that the Curé thereby stopped the advance of the Protestants beyond Arundel. It is doubtful that the Protestants were aware that they had been outflanked, since their children were expanding into better farmland in Ontario and points west. Surprisingly, many of the new homesteaders and colonists were the children of farmers who had established in Ste. Agathe. In many cases their parents' farms were on poor, rocky soil, and they responded to the news of a more fertile valley beyond the Repousse.

The Curé continued to work towards the building of a railroad that would link his northern valley to his parish. He managed to get a lottery accepted to finance the project, a very unusual means of fund-raising in those conservative times. It is hard to imagine what drove him on. Did he imagine train-loads of produce finding its way from the northern valleys to Montreal or did he see the train as a means of bringing more and wealthier settlers north? He was clearly spearheading a movement to build Catholic communities. Sadly he didn't live to see the train arrive in Ste. Agathe or climb La Repousse. He died in 1891, the year before the completion of the rail link to Ste. Agathe. At that time the rail line was projected to end north of St. Jovite in a small village that remained the terminus. The citizens elected to name it Labelle in his honour.

Joseph Graham has written a book that features a select number of stories of Laurentian places and how they got their names. To learn more, click here.

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This material may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the author. © Joseph Graham