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Catherine Beaulieu Bouvier Lamoureux

Catherine Beaulieu Bouvier Lamoureux (also known as Kokum Baie, “one who gives and sustains life,” and Ehtsu Naats’i, “Grandmother of the winds,”) born c. 1836, died 1918, was a Métis woman from the Northwest Territories, Canada. Throughout her life she acted as an intermediary between the native peoples of the Mackenzie Basin and the European institutions in the area. She was the first women in the Northwest Territories to be designated as a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada.

Life

Catherine Beaulieu Bouvier Lamoureux was born around 1836 at Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories, Canada in a region known as the Mackenzie Basin. She was a Métis of French-Canadian and Dene ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was Francois Beaulieu who acted as a guide for explorer Alexander Mackenzie in his 1789 and 1793 voyages to the Arctic. On her mother’s side she was the granddaughter of Pierre St. Germain who acted as a guide on Sir John Franklin’s 1819-1822 Arctic expedition. Lamoureux practised traditional spirituality but was influenced by her education at St. Boniface’s Grey Nun’s (Sisters of Charity) convent in Red River Sk, and she would remain committed to the spread of the Roman Catholic faith in the Northwest. Lamoureux’s father, Francois Beaulieu II was a prominent trading chief in the west and was in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company outpost in Fort Resolution. There she met and married Joseph Bouvier, nineteen years her senior, in 1852. Two years after his death in1877, Lamoureux married Jean-Baptiste Lamoureux.

Major Achievements

Lamoureux played an instrumental part in the success of the Roman Catholic faith in the Northwest Territories. She helped establish the first permanent northern Oblate mission and was invaluable in he development of a hospital and school in Fort Providence. Her children were among the first to attend. Her mixed heritage allowed to work as an effective intermediary between the Mackenzie Basin's Native populations and European religious orders and the Hudson’s Bay Company. It was thanks to Lamoureux that the Oblates and the Grey Nun’s were able to establish and grow a congregation in the north. Lamoureux was a seasoned traveller and was famed for her long distance dogsled journeys. She often brought mail between communities when travelling to visit relatives. In the spring Lamoureux would journey out on snowshoes despite the dangers of broken up ice to collect birch sap for syrup. Once, her granddaughter asked to accompany her on a trip. Lamoureux accepted but warned her that if she could not keep up, she must return home. Not once on the journey did Lamoureux turn around to check if her granddaughter was still following. Catherine Lamoureux was and is still described as the “old mother of all of us.” Her life is typical of Métis matriarchs in the nineteenth century Mackenzie Basin.

National Historic Person

In 2011, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada designated Catherine Beaulieu Bouvier Lamoureux as a National Historic Person and erected a plaque in Fort Providence, Northwest Territories commemorating her life. The plaque reads as follows;

Remembered as the “old mother of all of us,” Catherine Lamoureux was an influential force in the northern Métis community. She represents the earliest Mackenzie Basin Métis women, a generation of matriarchs who ensured the continuance of northern Métis identity and culture. While respecting her traditions, she was also instrumental in the development of the first permanent northern Oblate mission and the Grey Nuns’ school and hospital that once stood on this site. Legendary for her long-distance dogsled journeys, this enterprising and resolute woman will long be celebrated as Ehtsu Naats’i, “grandmother of the winds.”

The submission of Catherine Lamoureux for consideration as a National Historic Person influenced a change in historical methodologies used by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board in their considerations of oral history. That Lamoureux’s life is remembered mainly via oral histories when lack of written records caused many of her fellow Métis women to be forgotten is a testament to her lasting importance and impact on her community.

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