Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons

Sainte-Marie among the Hurons represented a spectacular episode in the history of New France when a few ardent apostles of Christianity bravely built a mission in the wilderness. While others settled the coastlnes, this dedicated band of Jesuits took an inspired step beyond the known to found in 1639 the first inland European settlement north of Mexico, their purpose to spread their faith among the Huron people. Sainte-Marie was a palisaded community of some twenty buildings set in a marshy plain near the shore of Georgian Bay, surrounded by almost impenetrable forest. At its peak it housed one fifth of all the European population of New France. But the mission was short-lived. Caught up in the Iroquois raids on Huronia, the Jesuits destroyed Sainte-Marie to save it from desecration. Now, more than 300 years later, after many years of excavation, research and reconstruction, Sainte-Marie has been reborn, and stands again, a living monument to that ancient community...