Lac Ste. Anne

The old Lac Ste. Anne mission.

Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, 70 km west of Edmonton, is a major pilgrimage site for Canadian Indians and Alberta Catholics generally. An estimated 30,000, of all ethnicities, come in July each year. But why?

Part of the story is that it is the site of the first Catholic mission in Alberta, and the first successfully established west of St. Boniface. But that is only part of the story. In other places, the first Catholic mission has not inspired such a pilgrimage. And why, after all, was the first mission established here, and not at some location more easily reached by river transit, like Fort Edmonton?

Because Lac Ste. Anne was, in 1844, called “Devil’s Lake,” in the area’s various languages. It was known as Devil’s Lake because of a longstanding local belief that it was cursed, and the home of a great sea monster.

You will sometimes read that the Indian name was “Spirit Lake” or even “God’s Lake.” This is a misunderstanding of the Cree word “Manito” (Manitou). The Cree and other Indians understood these beings very much as we would understand “demon.” They were not moral beings and were hostile to man. And the one inhabiting the lake was understood to be a voracious man-eater. 

The shrine today.

Where better, then, to build a church and a mission, to rescue the local people from the devil?

Soon after the first missionary, Father Thibault, arrived, on September 8, 1884, he strode to the lakeshore, and, in a public ceremony, pronounced these words:

“All you evil spirits, I command you, in the name of the Blessed Trinity to leave the waters of this lake. Spirit of God, cover this lake with your power. Bless these waters, ….”

He thus not only exorcised the Lake, but consecrated it all as Holy Water, a Catholic sacramental, in the name of Ste. Anne. Since then, far from fearing the lake, innumerable Indians have reported miraculous cures from immersing in its water.

There is at the shrine today a display of discarded crutches and hearing aids.

Pilgrims.