Jeff

Dear Diary,
The experiences of being a priest are truly extraordinary as there are different duties to be carried out. My life in New France started in 1684 unlike the Récollets who were brought in as missionaries by Champlain in 1615. For those who do not recognize me, you may remember me as one of the many men or women wearing the pitch black robes during my hours of working. After a while in New France, some priests like Jacque le Cormier and I had a task to accomplish as missionaries to the Hurons. Our goal was to change as many Hurons into Catholics as we possibly could. We decided to live among them in Ste. Marie also known as Huron country. After persuading some Natives into becoming Catholic, we had to perform a special ritual by baptizing them to officially finish the ceremony. However, what the Hurons did not realize was the fact that we were deceiving them by saying we would give them better trade deals if they became Catholics. For some it wasn’t an issue as they were not very interested in the religion they were apart of, but for others, it was a huge decision between goods or what you truthfully believed in. Some could not resist the temptation of terrific trades, which made them switch their own religion as they did not realize how important their believes were. But, it did not matter to us priests because we had to do anything to convert the mind of the Hurons. Besides the persuasions, I noticed that the Natives had different meals compared to our tourtière or otherwise known as pork pie. We would also catch eels with weir baskets along the shore and then salt them. The salting was a great idea as the eels would not spoil over a year’s time in a barrel. Later on, we would eat them with an appetizing sauce to add a delicious touch. However, for the Natives, I unfortunately could not recall specific ingredients they used except for the fact that they had some sort of meat and vegetables in their dishes. Overall, I can safely say that my daily life of being a priest is fantastic as I am rewarded for spreading the Catholic religion I most definitely believe in.

The life of a nun is absolutely treacherous as the boring days seem to last forever. The only way you will survive is if you truly believe in the responsibilities that are in stored for the average day, without doing anything to make the time go faster like reading, which the impassionate nuns truly adore. Luckily, I am one of the few that enjoy the experiences that come with being a nun in New France. I was originally relied on as a missionary like my fellow friend Francois Collier who currently is in the midst of trying to convert the Hurons into Catholics. Unlike Francois, I was told to continue my occupation as a nun, in order to balance out the number of people moving into Huronia. Therefore, I am in charge of doing many other things than converting the religious believes of the Natives. Just a couple weeks ago, a few nuns and I had set up a school for both boys and girls to enhance the amount of education being produced in New France. Not only did we create them, but we also acted as teachers to the students in our black and white robes very much like the ones the missionaries wore. Education is not the only problem us nuns resolved as we made hospitals for the ill and convents for poor or homeless Native and French children. However, when it came to shelter for us, we would sleep and eat in small houses that offered terrific warmth from the wilderness and great protection. For our daily meals, pea soup was one of my favourite to have in either the afternoon or evening as the heat of the liquid warmed us up during the winter. Occasionally, salted eel would be put on the dinner table with delicious sauce to add great variety. In short, the average days of a nun are definitely not a walk in the park as you truly have to enjoy this profession to not quickly pass away of boredom.


 * Bibliography**


 * Dr. Jaenen Cornelius. __First Contact.__ Canada: Nelson, Thompson, 2006.
 * Neering, Rosemary. __Life in New France.__ Canada: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1976.
 * Baldwin, Douglas. __New France and the Fur Trade.__ Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Weigl Education Publishers Ltd., 2003.