Our Place Chez Nous Drop In Center

In the early 1850s, between 40 and 60 families of Métis buffalo hunters formed the original Catholic community west of Sturgeon Creek. About 1851 a mission was begun at the junction of Sturgeon Creek and the Assiniboine River, but it was soon moved to the present location at St. Charles. Bishop Tache asked Father Louis Francois Richer - La Fleche – a relative of the LaFleche family who still live in St. Charles – to construct a small log chapel. The priest did not reside there. He traveled from St. Boniface in the winter and followed his parishioners on their buffalo hunts in the summer. Father Damase Dandurand, who served at St. Charles from 1876 to 1900, was the first Canadian to become an Oblate. A windstorm on August 27, 1884, demolished the church. Father Dandurand, who retired in 1900, lived to the age of 102