Metis at Prayer – The Churches and Their History

Religion in rural regions is more than just about worship. It is also about community. Metis is blessed with five churches. Each of them has its own story.

1878 engraving reproduced in a newspaper. This is a riverside landscape featuring the Presbyterian Church and its manse. The buildings are surrounded by evergreen trees. In the foreground the St. Lawrence River and the beach. The buildings line a dirt road bordered by a wooden picket fence. At the bottom of the engraving the legend reads

A Presbyterian church was built at Leggatt’s Point to the design of the Reverend Thomas Fenwick.

In the early years Metis was missionary territory. Protestant and Roman Catholic clergymen were sent to Metis to provide the essential rites of baptism, burial and marriage. Evangelical societies raised funds to pay the stipends of clergymen to send them to the Metis mission because the community was too sparse and too poor to support one on its own. The Presbyterian churches were eager to convert Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics were anxious to protect their flock.

Black and white photograph of men and women gathered in front of a wooden church at the end of mass. The men are, for the most part, dressed in a dark jacket, a white pentalon and a flat braided hat decorated with a ribbon. The women wear a long white dress and a flat braided hat. In the background, a farm building can be seen behind a clump of mature spruce trees.

Members of the congregation of St. George’s Anglican Church assembled in their summer finery every Sunday in July and August.

Churches were built when there were sufficient funds and residents to support them. Even the least wealthy parishioners contributed. But the divisions within Christianity were no different in Metis than elsewhere. A Presbyterian Church was built for year-round residents of Metis. Another was erected for summer residents in Little Metis. Not to be left out, the Methodists built their own chapel. So did the Anglicans. The Catholic Church chose to avoid Metis altogether, building their parish church as far distant from the Protestants as possible, high atop the hill in St. Octave. With the population growing however, another Roman Catholic church was built in Baie-des-Sables. That parish in turn divided in two and a new church was built to provide services in Les Boules.

Religious diversity is a gift for the historian, particularly because clergymen were often good with the pen and careful record-keepers. Their letters are a rich resource that help chronicle life in Metis. Even if the community was divided into various congregations, there was agreement that worship was the pillar of a healthy community. There was a pew for every parishioner.

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