The French Counts of St Hubert, Saskatchewan

The Canadian frontier contrasted favorably, as a report in the January 1891 issue of the Winnipeg newspaper The Colonist reveals: "The settlers ... express themselves to be heartily glad to escape the excessive taxation, exacted from them while in the old country."

Jean immediately began working for Count de Saurras, of Annonay, France, who had built his house one year earlier in 1885.

Kristian Sullivan, who presented a talk about the Counts of St. Hubert to the Society for Historical Archaeology places the settlement at 1885 initiated by Meyer and le Comte Yves de Roffignac from Gascony.

[B][7] The Doctor's job, according to Humphreys, probably included acquiring and subdividing land, helping the new settlers to build their homes, lending them money and machinery when necessary, and setting up small businesses.

By 1889, when Meyer was replaced at Rolanderie by Count de Roffignac of Limousin, France, he had increased the holdings of the ranch to include large herds of bovine shorthorn cattle, purebred horses (bred for sale to the French army), and pigs, and had expanded the size of the farm to 4,480 acres (18.1 km2).

Meyer seems to have made an arrangement with the Federal government, Humphrey informs us, whereby 'la Rolanderie' received 2 acres (8,100 m2) of land for every settler he established.

Once he had paid a ten-dollar fee for his home quarter-section, established himself and lived there for five years, and secured the necessary title, he could purchase the adjoining quarter at a price set by the government.

In a letter to one prospective settler he wrote: "..Whoever on his arrival does not possess at least 3000 francs (600 dollars), has not at his disposal two (male) good labouring hands in his family, is not a farmer, harness-maker, mason or blacksmith should not come hither!"

In his letters to Ottawa Meyer repeatedly reminded the Federal government that the new settlers were extremely poor, and that they needed more than farmland in order to begin farming.

The consequence of inaction on these matters, the Doctor warned, was that the prospective settler would return to Europe or move to the US, where homesteads were distributed free of charge.

It was situated on a spot one-quarter of a mile west of the stone cairn (erected in 1940), which still stands near the turn in St. Hubert road as it descends into the Valley.

The Archbishop accepted at the meeting that the Catholic community in the district was large enough to warrant the building of a church and the establishment of a resident parish priest.

Once having secured the land, the January 1891 issue of The Colonist tells us, de Roffignac and Van Brabant induced a number of French families "to transport themselves across the Atlantic and locate within the limits of the settlement."

As The Colonist explained: "The general objective of the promoters (of colonization) was to enter largely into the cultivation of chicory and sugar beet and the raising of horses, cattle and sheep."

Fallourd described the problems that this solution posed: "This personnel, composed of French, English, German, Swede, etc., could not talk to each other except by signs - "a real Tower of Babel," as described later by Mr.

The Colonist indicates: "During the pulling season this year (at Bellevue, 1890) assistance was so scarce that a number of Indians were employed and paid in proportion to the work performed."

With a large community of French-speaking Catholics settled in the district, the nobles could count on a lingually uniform and readily available pool of labourers to man their various enterprises.

The purpose of this association was to "(grow) and Manufacture this indispensable article (chicory) under the firm style of the "Bellevue French Coffee Company" (Colonist).

The two men operated the chicory factory until de Beaudrap's departure for France in 1899, and the Count later claimed that the venture yielded him a small profit.

To ensure that the soil and climatic conditions were suitable, Mrs. Park recalls, "Tests of selected sugar beets had been made under the supervision of an expert from Brazil and apparently had proved satisfactory."

The farmers not only appreciated the sugar-beets conceivably were a more profitable cash crop than wheat, they recognized the vegetable was better suited to the climate of the region.

After surveying the land and gauging the possibilities of such an enterprise, they returned to France in the fall of 1890 to purchase equipment and recruit skilled labourers.

Disregarding the advice of Mr. F. Dunand, a specialist in cheese production who had accompanied them back to Canada, they built the factory, installed the machinery, and purchased a large herd of cattle.

Their expensively run households, their livery coaches, their hunts and races at Moosomin and Cannington Manor, and their gay social life indeed were extravagant, according to the standards of the pioneers who settled alongside them.

The vivacious Frenchwomen of gentle birth and breeding in fashionable décolleté gowns and jeweled neck and arms lent an air of distinction in spite of the incongruity of the crude setting"[7] But we have no way of knowing whether these activities were extravagant by their standards, since we do not have access to their account ledgers.

Westerners, both in Canada and in the United States, were wrestling through the 1880s and 1890s with the thorny problem of developing farming techniques suited to the dry climate and short growing-season of the central plains.

They not only gave the settlement an added stimulus to its growth, by establishing their various enterprises and encouraging immigration into the area, they helped to place the Church in the central position of authority in the community.

[8]: 261, 532 Many of the labourers and supporting entourage stayed in the settlement such as house servants, coachmen, artisans, gardeners, horse groomsmen, and tenant farmers.

The Merchant Bank Heritage Center soon followed which also celebrates the French Count history and displays the welcoming sign, "The Most Romantic Settlement in the West.

"[7] In the fall of 2002, economic development director Janet Blackstock along with Mayor Malcolm Green aimed at the restoration of the homes built in the late 1800s by the French aristocrats and paint outside murals in Whitewood to re-vitalize the local history.