Father August Brabant : saviour or scourge? The first colonial missionary among the Nuu-Chah-Nulth

Summary: This biography offers an insightful account of the first Roman Catholic missionary to live and work among the aboriginal people on the west coast of Vancouver Island during a period of dramatic change for First Nation communities. Father August Brabant endured long periods of isolation, built several log churches and undertook challenging trips along the coast in dugout canoes. His thirty-three year-long effort to transform Nuu-chah-nulth culture gives us a provocative case study of the dynamics that shaped, and continue to define, the colonial relationship between indigenous peoples and the state in Canada. Convinced he had a mission to save aboriginal people from themselves, the zealous priest strove to instill alien spiritual beliefs. He served as a willing instrument for imposing colonial power by introducing new forms of justice, commerce, dress, housing, personal identity, and - most devastating of all - schooling. As the father of Vancouver Island's first residential school, Brabant precipitated the single institution that proved most destructive to the people he set out to rescue.