The French Counts of St Hubert, Saskatchewan

Community in Saskatchewan, Canada

The French Counts settled in St. Hubert, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was located on Pipestone Creek, about south west of Whitewood. The French Counts of St Hubert stayed in the area between 1884 and the early 1900s, before World War I. St. Hubert is classified presently as an unincorporated area means there are five or more dwellings establishing a settlement, and the civic government is administered by the Rural Municipality of Silverwood No. 123. Dr. Rudolph Meyer was the initial European to arrive followed by others who established ranches in the vicinity of St. Hubert and Whitewood.

The French speaking settlement of St. Hubert is atypical of the communities that developed in the wake of immigration into
Western Canada. As Father B. Fallourd, parish priest at St. Hubert from 1918 to 1949, wrote in History of the Beginning of St. Hubert Mission, The Encyclopedia of Canada's peoples places the arrival of eleven aristocrats to St Hubert in 1889. Whatever the year of the arrival, there is no disputing the fact that they arrived sometime after 1882, when the Canadian Pacific Railway passed through Whitewood/Pipestone Valley, Meyer mentions that he had been advised by William Cornelius Van Horne and Mr. Pope to choose the area. At the time Van Horne was directing the construction of the transcontinental railway, and Pope was Conservative Minister of Railways.

In an article written in a November 1978 issue of The Whitewood Herald, Ruth Humphreys, who had written many articles on 'the Counts' tells us that the Valley and surrounding countryside so impressed the settlers that one of them exclaimed,' 'One could pasture a thousand goats here!" They apparently agreed that the land was well suited for producing cereal crops and raising livestock. After consulting with his cousin, Meyer decided to homestead on SE Township 4 Range 15 West of the Third Principal Meridian. He built his home and christened it 'la Rolanderie', in tribute to his employer, Monsieur Lorin, of Maule, Seine et Oise, France. (Lorin's chateau also was named la Rolanderie). The house, located in the Pipestone Valley about one mile (1.6 km) west of Joe Sage's farm, is owned by the Poncelet family. The name 'la Rolanderie' became synonymous with the name of the district, until approximately 1890 when the St. Hubert parish was founded. It is possible, as Fr. Fallourd suggests, that the district was named Rolanderie because Lorin had decreed that "the colony was to be given the name." The more convincing explanation is that the district was so named because the Rolanderie farm was both the first and the largest of the farms to be established. It moreover served as a half way house for CPR land guides and prospective settlers: much to Meyer's chagrin, for he complained in one of his letters, "I give them plentiful lodging and plentiful board without asking of either a cent." While at 'la Rolanderie', Meyer seems to have acted as a settlement agent for a Societe Anonyme (Anonymous Society; the French term for limited liability corporation). Fr. Fallourd writes that Meyer had been granted 100,000 francs (CA$20,000) by Lorin, a member of this organization, in order to establish a settlement on the Pipestone. The Doctor's job, according to Humphreys, probably included acquiring and subdividing land, helping the new settlers to build their homes, lending them money and machinery when necessary, and setting up small businesses. By 1889, when Meyer was replaced at Rolanderie by Count de Roffignac of Limousin, France, he had increased the holdings of the ranch to include large herds of bovine shorthorn cattle, purebred horses (bred for sale to the French army), and pigs, and had expanded the size of the farm to However the herd of pigs did not flourish due to a lack of feed as there was a shortage of grain produced by the Counts. He had been exercising the sacred functions at Fannystelle, Manitoba, during the year 1889. After residing here only a few months as guest of Count de Roffignac at the Rolanderie, the construction of a stone church was completed and in the month of August of the same year he was back in Paris working for the colonization of St. Hubert. "The funds for the construction of the church," Fallourd wrote, "were supplied exclusively by members of the French nobility and other French speaking Catholics." He observes that this is "One of the chief originality (sic) of the parish." The new parish was christened 'St. Hubert'. There are differing opinions as to how the founders of the Church arrived at this name. While Fr. Fallourd mentions that it was named after Saint Hubert, the patron saint of the hunt, Mr. Edmund Dunand, recalls that it was named after de Seyssel's son, Hubert. According to Bill Barry, the colony's patron, Meyer had an estate La Rolanderie near Saint Hubert, Belgium. At the meeting referred to above, the five men also agreed that immigrants of Catholic and French origin should be encouraged to settle in the Rolanderie area. They decided that the best way to ensure the subsequent development of the St. Hubert district as a French speaking Catholic community was to regulate the sale of homesteads. Similar colonial settlement reservations had been made in 1874 for French Canadians repatriated from the New England states, and had given rise to the establishment between 1876 and 1885 of ten new French settlements in Western Canada. Following this meeting the two aristocrats purchased fourteen quarters south of the Pipestone in Township fourteen (all of sections 31, 33 and 35 and all the east half of section 34) and fourteen quarters north of the. valley (all of sections 2 and 9, the north halves of sections 4 and 5, and the south half of section 3). This land in turn was sold to the Diocese of St. Boniface at or near cost. Once having secured the land, the January 1891 issue of The Colonist tells us, de Roffignac and Van Brabant induced a number of French families "to transport themselves across the Atlantic and locate within the limits of the settlement." They promised their compatriots "free and comfortable homes, liberty and remunerative employment," and one homestead quarter for each family head. Partially with the business of recruiting settlers in mind, de Roffignac had returned to France in 1889. Van Brabant spent the winter of 1891 in France "attending to immigration business in connection with the colony." The colony soon enjoyed a large measure of success. According to Father Fallourd, eighty eight French and Belgians arrived at Rolanderie between March 26, 1892 and October 4, 1893. De Roffignac's and van Brabant's plans to establish the settlement as a French speaking Catholic community dovetailed nicely with the plans of the aristocrats to develop the area into an agricultural industrial centre. As The Colonist explained: "The general objective of the promoters (of colonization) was to enter largely into the cultivation of chicory and sugar beet and the raising of horses, cattle and sheep." By working in these and other enterprises, the new settlers could earn enough money to establish themselves on their homesteads. They moreover had a place to stay, usually in the small houses built on or near the main farm yards at Rolanderie, Richelieu, and the others. The presence of the new settlers would solve a recurring problem that 'the Counts' had had to deal with. While 'the Counts' had brought with them from France several gardeners, servants, farm labourers, lease tenants, they still were in need of large manpower reserves. One enterprise they established in 1891 (the gruyere cheese factory), for example, would employ fifteen men in the winter and more than fifteen in the summer. One meal's menu served by a Count dished up a pig stuffed with a whole goose which was itself filled with epicurean dressing along with a complement of oysters. Annually the Counts booked the Whitewood Commercial Hotel for the Frenchman's Ball. "Many pretty dresses of the style of the late eighties were in evidence, souvenirs perhaps of better days across the sea. The vivacious Frenchwomen of gentle birth and breeding in fashionable décolleté gowns and jeweled neck and arms lent an air of distinction in spite of the incongruity of the crude setting"

During Whitewood's centennial year of 1992, they collaborated on the history of the French Counts. The Merchant Bank Heritage Center soon followed which also celebrates the French Count history and displays the welcoming sign, "The Most Romantic Settlement in the West."

Smeets, L. (1980) Memories of St Hubert Whitewood Herald
Sullivan, K. (2009), The French Counts of St Hubert The French Counts of St. Hubert: Local History as Social Commentary