Notre Dame de Lourdes is a predominantly Franco-Manitoban

Franco-Manitoban

Franco-Manitobans are a community of French Canadians and other French-speaking people living in Manitoba. Most Franco-Manitobans have roots in Quebec. However, many are of Métis and Belgian ancestry while others have ancestors that came directly from France, its former colonies and other...

 village in Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is located in Central Plains Region, 100km south-west of Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

. It is bordered by the Rural Municipality of Lorne

Lorne, Manitoba

Lorne is a rural municipality in the province of Manitoba in Western Canada. The separately administered village of Somerset is enclaved within the municipality, while the village of Notre Dame de Lourdes lies between it and the Rural Municipality of South Norfolk.-External links:*...

 and the Rural Municipality of South Norfolk

South Norfolk, Manitoba

South Norfolk is a rural municipality located in the Central Plains Region of Manitoba, Canada. It had a population of 1,170 according to the Canada 2006 Census...

. The village had a population of 589 inhabitants in the 2006 census, a decline of 4.85% from the 619 inhabitants during the 2001 census.

The town's name (English: Our Lady of Lourdes) is a reference to the Marian apparition that is said to have appeared before various individuals in separate occasions around Lourdes

Lourdes

Lourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

History

The site of Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes lies in Ojibwa country. Canadian pioneer explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye was a French Canadian military officer, fur trader and explorer. In the 1730s he and his four sons opened up the area west of Lake Superior and thus began the process that added Western Canada to the original New France in the Saint Lawrence basin...

 travelled through the area in 1738 while establishing a route to the ocean. The first settlers, from present-day Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, arrived in the 1880s. In 1891 Father Dom Benoît became the parish's first priest after arriving with French and Swiss immigrants.

External links

• Map of Notre Dame de Lourdes at Statcan