Rose Prince

Rose Prince (or Rose of the Carrier) was a Dakelh woman who has become the subject of a Catholic pilgrimage.

The grave of Rose Prince, at the former site of Lejac Residential School on Fraser Lake

Biography

Rose Prince was born in Fort St. James, British Columbia, in 1915, the third of nine children between Jean-Marie and Agathe Prince.[1] Jean-Marie was descended from the great chief Kwah, while Agathe had been raised in Williams Lake by the Sisters of the Child Jesus.

When the Lejac Residential School was built in 1922, Rose was sent there along with the other children from her school, as part of the Canadian residential school system. When Prince was 16, still attending school at Lejac, her mother and two youngest sisters died from an influenza outbreak. Devastated, she opted not to return home for the summers, but to stay on at the school instead. After graduation, she stayed on at the school, completing chores such as mending, cleaning, embroidering and sewing.

At some point, Prince contracted tuberculosis, and by the age of 34 she was confined to bed. On August 19, 1949, she was admitted to the hospital and died the same day.

Pilgrimage

In 1951, two years after her death, her body was reportedly found incorrupt.

Decades later, Father Joules Goulet called for a pilgrimage to Lejac. Although only 20 people gathered in its first year in 1990, awareness has grown dramatically through passing years. In 1995, 1200 people made the trip to Lejac, coming from the region and even other provinces. Father Goulet's prayers and anointments at the site have even been claimed to heal the chronically injured.[1]

References
  1. Annual Lejac Pilgrimage, Diocese of Prince George.
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