Nearly 150 years ago, three women trudged past a certain stand of white spruce trees near what would later become St. Albert. On a mission from God, they were with the Grey Nuns, and would become pivotal figures in this city's history.
This week, city officials recognized those pioneers by naming that tree stand after them. In a presentation on Wednesday Mayor Nolan Crouse officially changed the name of the White Spruce Forest to the Grey Nuns White Spruce Park. Richard Smith, archbishop of the archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton, blessed the park in a ceremony afterwards.
Speaking before about 30 dignitaries, Crouse said the Grey Nuns were one of the humanitarian founders of western Canada and helped build Alberta's first bridge, school, hospital and orphanage.
"You offered of yourselves so that we could be here today," he said, addressing the 14 Grey Nuns in the audience.
This will be the largest park in the city other than the river valley, Crouse continued, and perhaps the only park in North America to bear the Grey Nuns' name. "It is a park that we must honour and respect forever."
Deep roots
The white spruce forest is located at the end of Hogan Road east of Ray Gibbon Drive. Research by local retired forestry professor Peter Murphy suggests it is about 170 years old, and that it is one of the last known large spruce forests in any North American city. Council gave it legal protection as a municipal historic resource this September.
Council decided to name the forest after the nuns about six months ago in celebration of the city's 150th anniversary. The city had already named many streets and places after famous male religious figures, such as Bishop Grandin and Father Lacombe, so it was time the women got some recognition, said Crouse.
The city is assembling a committee to plan future development of the park, Crouse said, which will likely involve some sort of trail in it. "It needs to remain an area of tranquillity."
According to historians, the Grey Nuns got their start in St. Albert about 148 years ago with the arrival of Zoé Leblanc-Emery, Marie Jacques-Alphonse and AdÈle Lamy from Lac Ste. Anne. The trail they took to St. Albert likely went past the white spruce forest, meaning they may have walked past one of the oldest known trees in St. Albert — a white spruce that, according to Murphy, sprouted about 1841 and died in 2002.
Those sisters laid many of the foundations of Alberta today, said Smith.
"You started health care. You started education. You started social outreach," he said, addressing the nuns in the audience. "This is where it all began, and that 'all' is very huge."
This is an awesome, yet humbling moment for the Grey Nuns, said Sister Marguerite Letourneau, co-ordinator of the nuns. "How I wish our first mothers were here," she said, referring to St. Albert's first three nuns.
Those nuns came to a place with plenty of trees and not much else, Letourneau said in an interview.
"Poverty was so marked," she said — historians note that the nuns were overjoyed by a simple box of apples in the mail, for example — so the sisters helped the locals any way they could. "They gave it their all, never knowing it would be recognized [this] much."
Historians credit those sisters as being some of Alberta's first teachers and doctors. Their successors later built St. Albert's first school (the red brick schoolhouse), school district and seniors' centre (the Youville).
The Grey Nuns left deep roots in Alberta, Smith said, inspiring in others a respect for human dignity and the common good. "You recall for all of us the power of faith publicly professed.
