The last Trappist monastery in western Canada is up for sale, ending a tradition dating back to 1892.
The Notre Dame des Prairies monastic community has been home to more than 400 monks over the past 128 years, including 42 years in its current location in Holland, Man.
Soon, however, its halls will empty, as the last Trappist monks in the Prairies leave the building for good.
“There are only six monks left. Four are in a long-term care home,” said Father André Barbeau, father abbot of the Val Notre-Dame Abbey in Quebec and designated father of Notre Dame des Prairies. He spoke to Radio-Canada in an interview conducted in French.
“The youngest brother is 82 years old, and the oldest 95. They themselves made the decision to end their community.”
The Cistercian Order of Strict Observance, also called the Trappist order, has already sold roughly 324 hectares of agricultural land surrounding the monastery — about 130 kilometres west of Winnipeg — to farmers, Father André said.
The two remaining monks will soon live in a house in Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, he added, roughly 20 kilometres east of the monastery.
The Trappist monastery in Holland, Man., is for sale. (Samuel Rancourt/Radio-Canada)
The buildings of the monastery, valued somewhere between $1.5 and $6 million, and 32 hectares of adjacent land are now on the market. The Trappist order is in negotiations with the St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church, Father André said, and he hopes a deal could be finalized by late fall.
“They have several monks in Egypt and they are ready to bring more to Manitoba,” he said. “They would like to use the monastery site as a spirituality centre, in collaboration with the archdiocese of St. Boniface.”
Monastery ‘never really took off’ in Manitoba
The first Trappists arrived in Canada in 1881, and the order grew to 100 monks within the decade, Father André said. The Notre Dame des Prairies monastery was founded in 1892 in St. Norbert, after the parish priest, Father Joseph-Noël Ritchot, worked to have land set aside for its construction, according to a City of Winnipeg document.
But, Father André says, “it never really took off.”
Looking back, Father André believes maintaining the use of French in the monastery may not have served it well. The monastery was francophone until the 1990s, when it became bilingual.
Only six monks remain as part of the Notre Dame des Prairies monastery. (Samuel Rancourt/CBC)
“It worked well at first, but in the 1940s, after the war, we realized that [the English language was becoming more and more important even within the archdiocese of St. Boniface],” he said
“In the ’90s, maybe we should have chosen English as our only language. A lot of people who wanted to enter the monastic life were English speakers from Western Canada.”
Many of those unilingual monks had difficulty adapting to the bilingual monastery.
“None persevered,” Father André said.
“Twice, we sent a strong contingent of a dozen of monks each to try to revive the monastic life. A monastery in the United States also lent a hand by sending a group of nine brothers,” he said.
“All this has not been enough to allow the community to flourish.”
The last Trappist monks in the Prairies
The sale will mark the end of the Trappist presence on the Prairies, but traces of their order will remain, like the 77 tombs of the monastery’s cemetery.
The cemetery will be repatriated to the cemetery of the parish of St. Norbert, Father André said.
“We never leave a cemetery behind us,” he said.
“It is complicated and costly, but I think it is important. There will be, at least in St. Norbert, still the presence of the deceased.”
The Trappist monks are entrusting their cemetery to the Archdiocese of St. Boniface, and their archives to the St. Boniface Historical Society. (Samuel Rancourt/CBC)
The Trappist archives will also live on in Winnipeg. The order sent its entire collection to the St. Boniface Historical Society.
“We will contribute, including financially, to the development of this collection, because these archives are of interest to everyone,” Father André said. “We would also like to have digitized copies.”
A three-metre statue of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus in her arms, currently located inside the monastery, will be offered to the Archdiocese of St. Boniface to be installed in the park alongside the Archbishop’s residence.
All that the monks leave behind — the statue, cemetery and monastery itself, along with the ruins of the old monastery in St. Norbert — will be the last public traces of the Trappist order that spent more than a century contributing to Manitoba history.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
