Stories THE d’ARRAS FAMILY IN Canada  (An excerpt) Download the complete document) It was not just official agents of the Canadian government who were active in Belgium. There were a number of personal initiatives to develop some areas to be settled, on the southern border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Two initiatives in particular hold our attention. Around 1888, an arrival of Belgians settled on the southern border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Their parish priest, Father Jean Gaire, is Alsatian. These twenty-eight families have created their new parish “Grande Clairière”. Subsequently, other Belgian settlers have created Deleau (named after a Belgian settler) and others have reinforced another nearby colony, on the Souris River. Sébastien Deleau recruited the future inhabitants of this region among his friends and neighbors in his native province of Belgian Luxembourg. He was therefore a so-called “repatriate – recruiter”, whose trip was paid by the Canadian government. Many families from Gembes and Haut-Fays left for Canada (after 1887) to settle in Manitoba at Deleau and Grande Clairière. ……. Of course, their decision to emigrate to Canada was not made on a whim. They were not driven by an emergency such as war or religious persecution. Throughout their youth, they saw men and families leave their village and surrounding areas for the United States and Canada. These departures were to be the subject of many conversations in these village communities and the exchanges of letters were to feed them. They were aware of the existence of this small Francophone community in southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I keep a letter that a friend of my grandfather had written to him from Bellegarde in 1912. The list of passengers disembarking at Saint John is interesting. It specifies that Arsène and Elie want to go to Deleau. This list done at the exit of the boat identifies the immigrants. They get off in groups and we find Arsène and Elie with other people also going to Deleau. It is clear that the project had been prepared in Belgium well before the departure. ….. Afterwards, we know that Elie is listed in the directory of “Western Land Grants”. He obtained land in Humboldt (Saskatchewan). We have not so far had access to the document itself, which should allow us to precisely date this transfer. What is certain is that the two brothers do not settle in the same place. Arsène therefore settled in Manitoba. Oral transmission in Canada said that Arsène and Céline had met “in a little French community in Manitoba”. That's what happened. Céline was born in Haut-Fays in 1884; Arsène in Daverdisse in 1873. Daverdisse and Haut-Fays are two neighboring villages in the Belgian Ardennes. It is clear that the families knew each other when they were in Belgium. Céline was 21 when she arrived in Canada, but she didn’t come alone, the whole family emigrated. However, his father, Henri Joseph, was not very young, he was 54 years old. He was a “stave maker”, that is to say a carpenter specializing in the wood used to make barrels. They didn’t leave Haut-Fays and the surrounding area alone. In addition, they knew people and families who had already settled in Manitoba around Deleau and Grande Clairière. Perhaps they had remained in epistolary contact with some? A certain Jean-Baptiste Delbrouck and his wife Marie Volion left for Deleau in 1904. Jean-Baptiste picked up his parents in Belgium the following year. They took the same boat as the Daigmont, as well as the Naviaux family. This small troop left Antwerp on May 2, 1905 aboard the Montezuma. They arrived two weeks later, on May 17, in Quebec (see photo below). The Daigmont family settled in Deleau, later in Brandon. Arsène is in Hartney. Hartney and Deleau are 14 km apart. They married on April 7, 1910 in Cameron, a municipality bordering Hartney. The 1911 census mentions them in Brandon where the Daigmont parents lived. Arsène was a self-employed “farmer”. Later, they went, like other families, to help in the development of Bellegarde (Saskatchewan). Download the complete document)