Louis-Franois Babel

Louis-Franois [Louis] Babel was born on 23 June 1826 in Veyrier, Switzerland. After attending school in Fribourg and Melan, Switzerland, he entered the noviciate of Notre-Dame-de-l'Osier in France in 1847. Making his final vows in 1848, he undertook theological studies, first in Marseilles, and later in Maryvale, England. In 1851, Babel was ordained as a priest in Ottawa, Canada. From 1851 until 1911 he worked as a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate among the Indians of the north shore of the St. Lawrence River and of interior Labrador. His linguistic skills proved invaluable in his missionary work and he was the author of a French-Montagnais dictionary.

A meticulous scientific observer and explorer, Babel was the first to report iron ore in what was to become New Quebec. In 1873, his detailed scientific data was used by the Quebec Department of Crown Lands as the basis for a large map, the first one to describe the interior of Labrador. He died on 1 March 1912 at Pointe-Bleue in Quebec, Canada. A township in the Saguenay region and a mountain in the region of Lac Pletipi are named for him.

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