Elphège Allard OMI (1891 - 1935)

Elphège Allard was born at Saint-Simon-de-Bagot, Quebec. His family provided the Church with three Oblates priests and three Sisters of the Presentation of Mary. Father Elphège studied at the Seminary of Saint-Hyacinthe in Montreal and left for the Catholic missions in British Columbia a month after being ordained as an Oblate priest. He served as an itinerant missionary along the railroad line and at mining camps.((Andre Dorval, OMI, “Recovered, Thanks to a Picture of the Virgin.” OMI 2023 website: https://www.omiworld.org/anecdote/recovered-thanks-to-a-picture-of-the-virgin/))

Father Elphege Allard came to Atlin around 1906. He stayed several years and travelled to nearby areas including Carcross. His sister joined him, and they started a boarding school with about twelve children.((Helene Dobrowolsky interview with Father Tanguay, 8 November 1989. Yukon Heritage Branch files.)) He was the priest at St. Mary’s Church in Dawson in 1914.((“New western town.” //Dawson Daily News// (Dawson), 21 October 1914.)) He established the church in Telegraph Creek in 1926, and travelled into the interior to Dease Lake, McDame, Liard Post, and Iskut. He connected with people in Lower Post and encouraged them to be baptized.((“Watson Lake: St. Ann’s Parish.” Roman Catholic Diocese of Whitehorse, 2020 website:  http://www.whitehorsediocese.ca/watson-lake---parish-profile.html.)) In 1930, he was one of the first missionaries to obtain a pilot’s license.((Andre Dorval, OMI, “Recovered, Thanks to a Picture of the Virgin.” OMI 2023 website: https://www.omiworld.org/anecdote/recovered-thanks-to-a-picture-of-the-virgin/))

In July 1935, Father Allard was travelled with Bishop Emile Bunoz on the Dease River with a heavily loaded canoe. He was unable to avoid an overhanging branch in a rapid and was swept overboard. The bishop was stranded on a bank near the wrecked canoe for two days before he was rescued by a passing commercial vessel. The police and First Nation citizens searched for three weeks before they found Allard’s body.((Andre Dorval, OMI, “Recovered, Thanks to a Picture of the Virgin.” OMI 2023 website: https://www.omiworld.org/anecdote/recovered-thanks-to-a-picture-of-the-virgin/))