RIVIERE SALE / St. NORBERT
Main Street St, Norbert 1900
Shops in the main street in St. Norbert 1900. From left to right,
the Laporte family, owners of the Schwartz forge, the meat
market Hyacinthe Brisebois, and the house Brisebois.
This area south of the Red River Settlement at the point where the
Rivière Sale (Dirty River) enters the Red River was, in the 1700s, a
seasonal gathering place for Metis because it was the best fishing area
in the country. In July and August it was swarming with burbot,
jackfish, carp and catfish.
The community became a year round establishment between 1822 and
1825 by former fur trade employees who settled there with their Metis
families. For many years their primary occupations were the buffalo
hunt, subsistence farming and cartage via the cart routes that radiated
out in all directions from the Red River Settlement.
Every year the people from the surrounding area would join the Metis
from St. Norbert to journey up the Rivière Sale and on to the buffalo
hunting grounds along the Missouri River. They would travel as far as
the first range of the Rocky Mountains. They would then return along
the Cheyenne River in North Dakota and at the point it joins with the
Red River head north again. In the winter this same group would
travel to the west to the Lauder Sand Hills on the Souris Plain, a
wintering spot for bison. Many of the St. Norbert families also had
homes at Oak Lake, just north of the sand hills.
In 1857 Msgr. Tache established the St. Norbert area as a parish,
which he named in honour of Msgr. Norbert Provencher, the first
bishop of St. Boniface. It was in St. Norbert that Louis Riel organized
the first Metis resistance movement of 1869-70. The Rivière Sale was
also renamed as the La Salle River after René Robert Cavalier de la
Salle who explored in the Louisiana area and up the Mississippi River.
Ave De L’Eglise
Centre du patrimoine Website Collection
St. Norbert, seen from the east side of the Red River in 1911. From left to
right: presbytery built in 1905; the church and rectory dependencies; the
church built in 1883, burned down in 1929; the convent built in 1874 and its
dependencies; the 1904-1905 convent incorporating the 1889
convent; Joseph Turenne home built in 1871.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Collection of the St.
Boniface Museum, MSB 003
Photograph of the interior of the church of St. Norbert built in 1883 and whose Ritchot is very
proud. The paintings that decorate the sanctuary are the work of Franco-Manitoban artist
Constantin Tauffenbach Alsatian strain.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface General Collection SHSB, SHSB 2263
The presbytery of Ritchot 1890. We see the building before the
pastor of St. Norbert with his long white beard. The rectory was
destroyed by fire a few months before the death of Ritchot in
1905.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Alida Laporte
Fund Gendreau and Claire Bartmanovich Gendreau, SHSB 26080
The fanfare of St. Norbert in 1890.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Alida Laporte
Fund Gendreau and Claire Bartmanovich Gendreau, SHSB 26079
View of the bridge crossing the La Salle River to provide access
to the Trappist monastery, 1907. The bridge was built by the
Trappists when they established the Notre-Dame-des-Prairies in
1892.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Alida Laporte
Fund Gendreau and Claire Bartmanovich Gendreau, SHSB 26086
The home of Arthur Champagne family is destroyed by a tornado
that touches St. Norbert in the summer of 1907. According to
oral tradition, the cradle miraculously remained in place and the
baby was found unharmed, on a pile of manure.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Alida Laporte
Fund Gendreau and Claire Bartmanovich Gendreau, SHSB 26085
The class of 7th and 8th divisions of the Convent of St. Norbert in 1908.
For over a century, that is to say from 1858 to 1970, the Grey Nuns are
responsible for the education of children and later for girls St.
Norbert. Their convent is then transformed into nursing home.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Alida Laporte Fund
Gendreau and Claire Bartmanovich Gendreau, SHSB 26089
An event out of the ordinary at St. Norbert. In 1920, the two-storey house
of Zacchaeus Laporte family moved from the farm to the village on a lot of
cars pulled by a team of horses. In the foreground, the Laporte store
gasoline distributor.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Alida Laporte Fund
Gendreau and Claire Bartmanovich Gendreau, SHSB 26073
Asylum Ritchot in 1922. The building to the right is the former home
Lemay. The Sisters of Mercy to open an orphanage in 1904. The
construction of the new building, left, goes back to 1912.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface, Alida Laporte Fund
Gendreau and Claire Bartmanovich Gendreau, SHSB 26098
Students of the Convent of St. Norbert ascend several theater productions
in the 20th century. In this photo, the actresses of Marie Antoinette cake in
1937 under the direction of Ms. Houde.
Archives of the Historical Society of St. Boniface General Collection SHSB,
SHSB 5139
http://shsb.mb.ca/au_pays_de_riel
Map Shows were bridge crossed the La Salle in 1869