Канадалық миссионер әке Лакомб және үндістермен бейбітшілігі

French Canadian Roman Catholic missionary

Albert Lacombe (28 February 1827 – 12 December 1916), known as Father Lacombe, was a French Canadian Roman Catholic missionary who travelled among and evangelized the Cree and also visited the Blackfoot First Nations of northwestern Canada. He is now remembered for having brokered a peace between the Cree and Blackfoot, negotiating construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway through Blackfoot territory, and securing a promise from the Blackfoot leader Crowfoot to refrain from joining the North West Rebellion of 1885.

Lacombe was born in Saint Sulpice, Lower Canada, to Albert Lacombe and Agathe Duhamel on 28 February 1827. Since his parents were farmers, most of his early life was spent on the family farm. However, he was from an early age highly religious. At age 22, he was ordained a priest on 13th June 1849, following studies at the Collège de l'Assomption in L'Assomption, Canada East. Following ordination, he was sent west to Pembina, Minnesota Territory, where he worked from 1849 to 1851 with the Jesuit priest, Fr George Belcourt. In 1851 he returned briefly to Canada East, where he secured a position as a curate in the town Berthier. After relocating to Lac Ste. Anne, Lacombe concerned himself during the period from 1853 to 1861 with expanding the mission and deepening his ties to the Indigenous population, eventually travelling as far north as the Lesser Slave Lake in search of converts. He began his novitiate in the
Oblate order in 1855 under René Rémas and became a member of the congregation on 28th September 1856. During his years at Lac Ste. Anne, Lacombe visited Jasper House, Fort Edmonton (Edmonton), Lac la Biche, Lesser Slave Lake and Fort Dunvegan (Dunvegan).

For the remainder of his life, Lacombe played a major role in founding schools throughout the West, such as St Mary's School in what is now the Mission District of Calgary. His last major travels were to Europe in 1900 and 1904, where he visited Austria and met Emperor Franz Joseph I. His body was interred in the crypt of the St. Albert parish church. Additionally, an elementary school, Albert Lacombe, is named for him in St. Albert, Alberta. The cities of Lacombe, Alberta and St. Albert, Alberta, are also named in his honour. In 1932, Lacombe was recognized as a National Historic Person by the government of Canada. A plaque commemorating this is on the north side of the North Saskatchewan River on Highway 36, Brosseau, Alberta. In addition, the work of Lacombe with the Blackfoot and John McDougall with the Cree, in helping to maintain peace, in 1885, was recognized in 1932. A plaque commemorating this can be found at the west end of city park Wetaskiwin, Alberta.

Lacombe was portrayed by actor John Hamilton in a minor role in the 1949 Hollywood film Canadian Pacific.