Jean-Marie Mouchet OMI (1917 - 2013)
Father Jean-Marie Mouchet was born in Malbuisson, in the Jura district of France. He was an avid downhill skier and was recruited to teach French soldiers skiing during the Second World War. He was ordained as a priest in 1944 and was part of the French resistance. In 1945, he was captured at his college and shipped to a concentration camp in the north of France. He was on the train to Buchenwald when the Germans were driven from France.1) Father Mouchet hitchhiked to Paris and then walked to his home in Dijon. Mouchet was granted a missionary post in northern Canada in 1946 and was briefly in Teslin and Lower Post before going to Telegraph Creek where he spent nine years. He established a downhill ski program for youth while he was there. In 1954 he was transferred to Old Crow where he stayed for twenty-five years.2)
A meeting with Sven Johannssen, the coach of the American biathlon team, provided Mouchet with his life's work. Mouchet established the Territorial Experimental Ski program (TEST) in the late 1950s and in 1963 his student Martha Benjamin won gold at the Canadian championships. Between 1960 and 1984, Sharon and Shirley Firth, Tetlit Gwich’in skiers from Inuvik, competed for Canada in four consecutive Olympics. By 1972, seven of the nine members of Canada's Olympic cross-country ski team came from the Inuvik region. Over the next decades, the TEST program was introduced to schools across the north for children of all ages.3)
In 1993, Mouchet received the Order of Canada from the Governor General. Mouchet had already received the Chevalier se l'order National in 1991 from the French government and the Yukon Commissioner's Award in 1981. Father Mouchet was introduced into the Yukon Sports Hall of Fame in 1980. In 2002 he was working on another program for Old Crow that focused on health, as First Nations' youth have a high incidence of diabetes. Mouchet skied more than 2,000 km every year and used roller skates during the summer. His autobiography is called Men and Women of the Tundra (2002) and proceeds from the book went to support Mouchet's ski program.4)
Father Mouchet’s last years were spent at St. John the Baptist Church in Carcross.5) He was the last member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the Yukon. He died at Copper Ridge Place after struggling with the debilitating consequences of a fall. Father Mouchet’s death marked the end of 115 years of continuous Oblate presence in the Yukon.6)
Father Moucher’s ashes were interred in three carved logs. One was buried in Whitehorse, one was sent to Malbuisson in France, and the third was taken to Old Crow and placed in a monument built by Old Crow people on the top of Crow Mountain. At a time when many of the clergy are reviled for heinous actions in their past, Father Jean-Marie Mouchet stands out as a leader who taught that anything is possible if one is in accordance with nature, and people can be better than they thought possible.7)