Will to Power: The Missionary Career of Father Morice

Richard C. Smith is a professor in the Classics Department of the
University of Alberta.

This account of British Columbia’s most famous missionary, Father A.G. Morice, a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is far from the usual laudatory presentation of church work carried on by a selfless frontier priest. Although recognizing Father Morice’s interest in scholarship and exploration, David Mulhall (a history teacher in Westmount, Quebec) instead concentrates on the priest’s egotism and desire for power which both helped create a veritable missionary kingdom in the northern interior of British Columbia and then, as settlement patterns changed, led to a complete and utter downfall.

Though Mulhall traces Morice’s life from his birth in France in 1859 to his death in Winnipeg in 1938, most of the study concentrates on his work with Indians from 1885 to 1903. Some space is given to the missionary’s early education and how he was influenced by the achievements of Father Emile Petitot, who had made a name for himself in the Canadian Northwest among the Dene. Mulhall makes it clear that, in his view, Morice should never have been allowed to take his vows as an Oblate since, because of his vanity, ambition, and insubordination, he was unsuited for a life presumably marked by modesty, self-denial, and submission to his superiors. Morice’s subsequent career certainly appears not to embody those virtues.

Arriving in New Westminster in 1880, Morice’s first task was to learn enough theology to be ordained as a priest, a task slowed by his refusal to study regularly. Instead, the would-be missionary-pioneer was more interested in teaching music and developing a simplified alphabet for one of the Indian languages. He was finally ordained in 1882 and soon sent to teach in a mission school at Williams Lake. This bored him, and in 1883 he was given a more independent assignment — the task of evangelizing the Chilcotin bands of Central British Columbia. While this went well, he was unable to get along with his fellow Oblates and was eventually sent to his final posting among the Carrier bands around Stuart Lake.

In this area, he soon became a missionary “king,” having power, not only to influence the Indians, but also to demand support from the Hudson’s Bay Company and spend much of his time writing of Indian customs and exploring. As long as fur-trading was the chief industry of the non-Indian population, Morice was able to operate very effectively, since he was able to speak the Carrier language most fluently. However, once gold mining brought more travellers through the region and this in turn brought permanent settlers, Morice gradually lost his authority. Unable to co-operate with his fellow priests, he was transferred to Manitoba where he lived the rest of his life, generally in conflict with his superiors.

Mulhall creates a vivid picture of both the successful energy and the tremendous drive for personal power shown by Morice in a life which he compares to that of the African missionary, David Livingstone. He also makes clear how blind egotism and ambition caused Morice’s downfall. It is a study that is well worth reading.