The Beginning of Print Culture in Athabasca Country by Patricia Demers, Naomi McIlwraith, and Dorothy Thunder (review)

In 1876, Roman Catholic missionary Émile Grouard returned to his mission field in the Athabasca region from a trip to France, equipped with a Stanhope printing press, sets of copperplate for illustrations and type for syllabics, and a few months' training in their use. By 1883, he had printed a 224-page book in Plains Cree, using syllabics and containing the fundamentals of the Oblate order's beliefs and practises for the people of Athabasca.

This unusual book is, as its subtitle notes, A Facsimile Edition and Translation of a Prayer Book in Cree Syllabics. A collaboration between an English scholar and Cree speakers and linguists, it is clearly the result of lengthy, determined, and careful labour. The translators provide brief introductory essays and an afterword in which they note the current tensions over the contested fields of mission work and language retention, situate the text in the history of Father Grouard's work among the Dene and Cree, and provide a detailed and transparent discussion of the challenges of the translation process.

Most of the book, however, is an interesting experiment in producing and reproducing an historical text. Each page of Grouard's original book is presented as part of a two-page spread. A facsimile of the original page is printed on the left, with an English translation of the Cree beside it. On the right-hand side of the layout, the translators provide two transcriptions of the syllabics in Roman characters: one a direct transcription from the original syllabics, and the other transcribed into modern standard rendering of Plains Cree. While I am in no position to evaluate the skill of the translations and transcriptions, the careful explanation of the process in the afterword leaves me confident that every care was taken to deal with the obvious challenges.

Grouard gave his book the title Catholic Prayer Book, but it contains much more than standards such as the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary and various creeds and collects. There are the Ten Commandments, instructions for contemplations during mass and at the Stations of the Cross, the questions and answers of the catechism, and lessons from the Bible. There are instructions on the "proper" thoughts to accompany various church ceremonies and the words for 71 hymns, together with the names of appropriate tunes for each. Grouard clearly attempted to translate his theological beliefs into concepts that made sense in Cree, and a careful reading of his prayer book provides insight into his particular brand of religion. What we cannot tell, however, (and what the translators cannot really address) is how accurate or extensive Grouard's understanding of the language of the nineteenth-century Plains Cree really was, and how his Cree audiences responded to his use of it.

The contributors to the project were clearly surprised to find that a nineteenth-century missionary took such pains to learn and use an indigenous language. They praise Grouard for his "championing" of it. They urge modern audiences accustomed to the residential schools story not to "condemn" this older part of western Canadian history "to a colonialist past" (x). However, the primary interest of the contributors is in the record of the language itself, and the ways in which it might be useful to current language retention and revival projects.

The Beginning of Print Culture in Athabasca Country is really a source book. For those interested in language, linguistics, and Plains Cree, it provides an extensive database. For those interested in the history of missions in the Canadian northwest, it provides a primary source for insight into the messages that the Oblate mission was attempting to convey. For Cree speakers, it will be an interesting perspective on their language.

There was a missed opportunity here, however. It would have added considerably to the utility of the book if the contributors had included a more extensive discussion...