Memorable Manitobans: Angelique Nolin (1787-1869)

Educator.

Born at Sault St. Marie in 1787, her mother was Metis and her father was a fur trader and merchant. Angelique and her sister Marguerite were educated in Montreal by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame. The family came to the Red River Settlement in 1819. Bishop Provencher asked Angelique and Marguerite Nolin to run the first formal Catholic school for Aboriginal girls in the area. At first the sisters refused but, in 1826, after the death of their father, Provencher asked again, and they opened the school in 1829. The school educated Metis, French, Cree, Ojibwa, and Scottish girls. The Nolin sisters ran the school until 1834 when they travelled with Father Belcourt to Baie St. Paul to start a school there that would integrate the Aboriginal and Metis way of life with a Catholic education. Their major achievement during the ten years they worked with Belcourt was to help him translate an Ojibwa dictionary and several other textbooks into Aboriginal languages. In the 1840s, Nolin and her sister quit teaching and began farming, which they did until their deaths.

Sources:

The Unheard Majority: A History of Women Educators in Manitoba by Clare Levin, 2002, Province of Manitoba.

This page was prepared by Angela Graham.

Page revised: 4 October 2021

Memorable Manitobans

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