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Manitoulin Island in present-day Northern Ontario was first inhabited by the Odawa, and then by the Ojibway and the Pottawatomi. Joseph Antoine Poncet was the first Jesuit priest to step foot on the island, in 1648. However, the Jesuit presence in the region remained insignificant during the following years and ceased completely after the Society of Jesus was abolished by the pope in 1773.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the British Crown wished to develop the area as a settlement for all First Nations people, in order to free land for ensuing colonial encroachment. The 1836 Manitoulin Treaty between the British Crown and the Odawa and Ojibway stipulated that the area would be the property of all First Nations wishing to reside there. However, few Indigenous communities were ready to abandon their ancestral lands and move to Manitoulin Island. Faced with the failure of the project and desiring to gain access to the lands of the island, the Crown sought to conclude another treaty with the communities. The Marshall Treaty of 1862 targeted the surrender of these lands. Wiikwemkoong refused to sign it and began to oppose to any treaty with the British Crown, officially making Wiikwemkoong an unceded territory. Negotiations between the Crown and the First Nations were sometimes made with the support of Jesuit priests who returned to the region in 1844.

Jean-Pierre Chôné was the first Jesuit to come back to Manitoulin Island. A small catholic settlement, the Mission Sainte-Croix, was already established at Wiikwemkoong when he arrived. Founded in 1837 by Jean-Baptiste Proulx, a secular priest, the mission served an extensive Indigenous population. The mission was ceded to the Jesuits in July 1844. Jean-Pierre Chôné became the first Jesuit Superior of the Holy Cross Mission. In 1847, he was replaced by Nicolas Point, S.J., who remained Superior until 1854.

The Jesuits in present-day Canada were then under the authority of the Jesuit Province of France. During the first years, the Holy Cross Mission was administered by at least two Jesuit Fathers. One of them would stay in Wiikwemkoong, while the other travelled to other mission points of the region. Wiikwemkoong therefore became the focal point of Jesuit missions in Northern Ontario. As the missions developed, Jesuit missionaries in other Northern territories such as Gore Bay, Batchewana, Little Current, Killarney, Spanish River and Lake Huron North Shore continued to report formally and informally to the Holy Cross Mission at Wiikwemkoong. From that central point, the Jesuits managed schools and infrastructures and were active in the communities’ daily lives. In 1994, the Holy Cross Mission celebrated its 150th anniversary.

The church of the Holy Cross Mission is the oldest Catholic church in Northern Ontario. Construction began in the late 1840s and was mainly accomplished by Anishinaabe men, women, and children. The individuals who built it were mostly the Bemanakinong, Wakegijig, Gabow and Kenogameg (Kinoshameg) First Nations families. In 1954, the Holy Cross Church was almost destroyed by a fire, but was gradually rebuilt and is still standing today. Over time, the number of Jesuits in Wiikwemkoong decreased until a single Jesuit priest ensured the presence of the Society of Jesus in the community.

Father William P. Maurice, S.J. was born on January 13, 1916, in Lachine, Quebec to Thomas Maurice and Rosa Tenanchuk. The family relocated to Ingersoll, Ontario, where Fr. Maurice was raised and attended grade school from 1920-1933. On September 7th, 1937, Fr. Maurice was accepted into the Jesuit Novitiate in Guelph, Ontario. On September 8th, 1939, he pronounced his first, permanent vows as a Jesuit.

Fr. Maurice completed his two-year Novitiate and two-year Juniorate in Guelph, followed by three years of philosophy at the Jesuit Seminary in Toronto. From 1944-1946, he was a scholastic at Spanish Residential School, Ontario, where he began to learn Ojibwe, and from 1946-1947, he taught grade 8 at Loyola High School in Montreal, Quebec. On the 25th of June 1950, he was ordained a priest. Between 1953 and 1956 he completed summer courses in Elementary and High School teaching at the Ontario College of Education (now the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education).

Fr. Maurice finalized his vows on February 2nd, 1953. His ministry lasted over thirty years, during which time he held various appointments in the Society and in the Church. He was appointed to Spanish Residential School from 1952-1958, where he served as Principal and prefect, and oversaw the school’s eventual closure. He was then a teacher and spiritual director in Regina, Saskatchewan (1958-1960), a parish priest and missionary in Armstrong, Ontario (1960-1963) and a pastor and missionary at the Fort William Reserve, Ontario (1963-1978). In 1978, he moved to the Holy Cross Mission in Wiikwemkoong, Ont., and in 1984, he was assigned to Beardmore, Ontario, where he would stay until his retirement in 1991. During his time in Beardmore, he produced a dictionary of the Ojibwe language, and became a genealogist of the Northern Ontario region – a practice that he continued in his retirement.

Fr. Maurice passed away on the 14th of April, 2008.

Eugène Papineau, S.J. was born on January 18, 1876 in St-Vincent-de-Paul, Quebec. He entered the Society of Jesus on July 28, 1894. Father Papineau received his spiritual training and studied classics at Sault-au-Recollet, Montreal. He continued on to study philosophy at Immaculée-Conception, Montreal, from 1898 to 1901, and was then assigned to teach at the residential school at Wikwemikong in Manitoulin Island, Ontario. In his four years there, he became proficient in Ojibway. Father Papineau then went on to study theology at Immaculée-Conception from 1905 to 1909, and was ordained a priest on July 27, 1908.

In 1911, Father Papineau returned to Northern Ontario and became the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul (later renamed St. Bernard’s) parish in Little Current. As a resident pastor in Little Current, he had the responsibility of the Catholics on Manitoulin Island, with the exception of the Indigenous peoples living on the unceded territory of Wiikwemkoong. He was first assigned to Wiikwemkoong where he devoted much time to helping the parishioners at South Bay build a new stone church. In 1917, he was named Superior at the residential school in Spanish, Ontario.

Father Papineau became seriously ill in 1925. He received hospital treatment in Montreal but eventually returned to return to Little Current. He passed away in Toronto on July 31, 1931.

Joseph Jennesseaux was born in Rheims, France on April 12, 1810; a trained woodworker, he entered the Society of Jesus in Aix-en-Provence in December of 1831 and proceeded to work as a carpenter at various Jesuit houses around France. After a miraculous recovery from an injury, Brother Jennesseaux vowed to volunteer as a foreign missionary, and was soon enlisted as one of the initial nine Jesuits who would accompany Pierre Chazelle, S.J. to Montreal in 1842 to re-establish Jesuit practice in Canada following the Suppression.

Brother Jennesseaux spent his first years learning Algonquin with the Sulpicians who were stationed at Oka (near Montreal). In 1843, he relocated to Sandwich, Canada West, to continue studying language before proceeding for the next six years to Walpole Island, Lake St. Clair. Here, Brother Jennesseaux was met with strong resistance from the local Indigenous population, evidenced by the burning of a chapel and residence; ultimately, the Governor General ordered the Jesuits to leave.

Brother Jennesseaux next relocated to the Holy Cross Mission at Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island where he would stay until his death, working for the church, teaching children, and supervising the construction and repair of buildings including a new stone church, classrooms, and a convent for the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. Additionally, Brother Jennesseaux worked as a language interpreter for the Mission’s doctor and helped distribute medicine; he set up a press at the Mission to print prayerbooks and schoolbooks.

In 1883, due to waning health, Brother Jennesseaux returned to France, where he died in 1884.