Father Con Scollen, OMI. (4 April 1841 – 8 November 1902), was an Irish Catholic, Missionary priest who lived among and evangelized the Blackfoot, Cree and Métis peoples on the Canadian Prairies and in northern Montana in the United States. He also ministered to the Ktunaxa people (Kootenay) on their annual visits to Fort Macleod, from British Columbia. Later he worked among the indigenous peoples in modern-day North Dakota and Wyoming, then Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois and Ohio.
Early life Constantine Michael Scollen was born on Galloon Island, Upper Lough Erne, near the village of Newtonbutler, County Fermanagh, Ireland, on 4 April 1841. His parents were Patrick Scollen and Margaret Scollen, (née McDermott). His mother died in 1847 during the Great Famine and his father moved to England and worked as a warehouseman in Manningham, Bradford, silk mill, West Yorkshire. He then married his cousin, Catherine McEvoy, in 1851, and later moved his family to Crook, County Durham, England where he found work as a coal-miner. Scollen received a classical education at Ushaw College (St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw Moor, a Catholic seminary from 1808 until 2011) on the outskirts of the city of Durham and just a few miles from Crook. His tutor, Father Brook, hoped that Scollen would continue his studies, in Rome, (possibly English College, Rome). His much older cousin, Msg. Thomas Louis Connolly, a Franciscan Capuchin, Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, had become Archbishop of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1854. Two of his friends, Bro. Matthews and Bro. Lawrence Tivenan had already joined the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, so he decided to join them and to become a lay brother in the hope of studying for the priesthood, later. On 14 August 1858, he entered their novitiate," Lys Marie", in nearby North Yorkshire in the village of Sicklinghall, close to Wetherby near Leeds. He professed his provisional vows on 15 August 1859 and went to the Oblate retreat house, "Glenmary" in Inchicore village, south of Dublin and " took the habit" and taught there until March 1862. He had volunteered to join the missions in Canada when Mgr Alexandre-Antonin Tache visited Ireland in late 1861, on his way to Rome.(Oblates were never posted abroad.They had to be volunteers). On 25 March 1862, back in Sicklinghall, he made his temporary vows as an Oblate brother under Father Boisrame.
In Canada In April 1862 he and another Irish scholastic, Brother John Duffy, traveled, on an Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers ship, the SS Norwegian, with Mgr. Tache, on his return to Canada following his visit to a General Chapter in Rome, along with newly ordained Father Emile Petitot. They arrived in Fort Garry (Winnipeg) on 26 May 1862. Father Albert Lacombe then took Scollen across the prairies to St. Albert, Alberta. For parts of these journeys, they were accompanied by members of the "Overlanders", who were a group of would be gold miners, mainly from Ontario, involved in the Cariboo Gold Rush to British Columbia. He opened an English language school for children of the employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, at nearby Fort Edmonton. He then immediately began studying the Cree language, the first of his later to be six first nations tongues, along with French which was the language of the other oblates.
In 1867 there was a famine in the district so it became necessary to disperse the families to other posts in other areas. This greatly reduced the number of pupils so the school closed in 1868. He had taken his perpetual vows as a scholastic on 15 August 1865 on the understanding that he would be allowed to study for the priesthood. After some delays and interruptions caused by long periods out on the prairies living with the native peoples, he was able to continue his philosophy and theology studies under Father Vital Fourmond and was ordained on Easter Saturday 12 April 1873 by Bishop Grandin. He immediately left St Albert to begin his mission to the Blackfoot, on the Prairies. He was accompanied by fellow Oblate priest Fr Vital Fourmond as his superior. The group included Louis Daze, a French Canadian whose brother was an Oblate priest in Ottawa, who acted as a lay brother.(Daze died in a blizzard a year later while attempting to recover straying horses.) The group also included two others, Alexis Cardinal, a Metis and Jean-Baptiste L'heureux, a French Canadian, who acted as hunters, guides, catechists and interpreters (Scollen had begun studying Blackfoot in 1868 and was already fluent in both Cree and Chippewa) For the next eight years he remained mainly with the Blackfoot (Siksika Nation) and Kainai Blood people on the plains of Southern Alberta and Northern Montana, living their hard nomadic life without break apart from brief spring and autumn visits to St Albert, for supplies and to Fort Macleod.
He is particularly remembered for having the first building erected (by Alexis Cardinal, a Cree speaking Metis) in what is now, Calgary, Alberta, in 1872. In 1876 he was an unofficial interpreter for some of the Plains Cree Chiefs (Peter Erasmus Jnr., a half Danish Metis, Methodist minister, was interpreter for the other chiefs and Governor Morris) and witness to Treaty 6 between the Cree and the Canadian government. (The Woods Cree and Swampy Cree made a separate treaty with the Canadian government) He was an unpaid consultant to the Canadian government prior to the signing of Treaty 7 with the Blackfoot Confederacy, in 1877 and was again an unofficial interpreter and witness. Jean L'heureux became official interpreter because of the shortcomings of Jerry Potts. Scollen took great care to avoid politics but following the failure of the Dominion government to fulfill its treaty obligations, he became very outspoken, on behalf of the native peoples and remained so for the rest of his life. In 1870, he had spent the winter at Rocky Mountain House, co-writing a Cree language grammar and dictionary with his mentor, fellow Oblate and friend, Father Albert Lacombe. His considerable contribution was not acknowledged on publication. ("Dictionnaire de la langue du Cris.1874", "Grammaire de la Langue Cris.1874", "Instructions en Langue Crise sur toute la Doctrine Catholic.1875" and "Petite Manuel pour appredre a lire Langue Crise 1886") There was a further, much later publication entitled "Prieres Cantiques, Catechisme en Langue Crise 1980" which was derived from the original work but accredited to Lacombe only. Scollen also wrote a book of 75 sermons in Cree, for Oblate, Father Joseph Dupin.
In 1880 Alexis Cardinal built a house at Fort Macleod and Scollen spent the winter there. In March 1881 he traveled down to Milk River, Montana via Fort Benton to visit with Crowfoot and successfully persuaded him to return, with his people, to Canada. In October 1881, he left his Blackfoot mission, both mentally and physically exhausted by the brutally hard life. He was appalled by the attitude of the Canadian government towards the native peoples and its failure to adhere to its obligations under the various treaties.(These failures contributed to the 1885 North-West Rebellion/Resistance) He had seen the lives of the native peoples being destroyed by disease, alcohol and starvation and their lands being taken over by European/Canadian settlers. He was an outspoken advocate on their behalf and this combined with being an Irish Catholic caused him great difficulties with the Ontario Orange Order influenced Canadian authorities both civil and military and also with the Wesleyan Church|Wesleyan Methodists. Around that time, there were groups of Irish Republicans (mainly Catholic) living in the United States who twice unsuccessfully attempted to invade Canada. These people were known as "Fenians" in Canada. Although Scollen, as an Irish patriot, was sympathetic to their cause, he was strongly against the use of violence. The same applied to the Metis leader Louis Riel whom Scollen also counseled against using such methods.
In December 1882, he was appointed to parish duties in St Joachim, Edmonton but was stricken by cholera in August 1883. On recovery, he returned to St Albert, ministering and traveling among the local Cree native peoples again. In November 1884, along with Father Gabillion, he re-established a mission to the Cree people at Bears' Hill called Notre Dame de la Sept Douleurs (now Maskwacis, previously called Hobbema, near Edmonton) despite very aggressive opposition from the Methodists who were already firmly established there. During the "1885 North West Rebellion", at the request of the Lt-Governor Edgar Dewdney, he dissuaded the Cree Chief, Bobtail, from joining the hostilities. Some of the younger men had looted the nearby Hudson's Bay Company trading post at Battle River but he was able to calm the situation, get them to close their war camp, to return most of the stolen items and persuaded the Canadian Militia not to take punitive action against the people. Scollen had remained at his post even though he was aware that two of his fellow Oblate priests, Fathers Felix Marchand and Leon Farfard, had been murdered (in the nearby Frog Lake Massacre, by the young Plains Cree warriors of Mistahi-maskwa Big Bear), and all of the white people apart from a Mr Taylor, including the Indian Department officials and his longtime antagonists, the local Methodist missionaries, had fled from his area.
From around 1880, his relationship with the Oblate hierarchy, but not his fellow missionaries, had been becoming strained. His mental health had deteriorated and his behaviour had become erratic. He decided to become a secular priest and eventually resigned from the Oblates in July 1885. He was destitute and asked the Canadian government for help. They granted him 150 dollars in recognition of his work at Bears' Hill, (formerly known as Hobbema but now as Maskwacis) preventing hostilities during the Riel rebellion.(Father Lacombe had been granted 1000 dollars for his activities among the Blackfoot.) In November 1885, he asked to be allowed to return to the Oblates and Bishop Grandin sent him to the Oblate noviciate in Tewksbury, near Lowell, Massachusetts, USA for rehabilitation and to renew his vocation. He failed to complete his novitiate there so Bishop Grandin ordered him to go to yet another novitiate Lachine, Quebec but instead Scollen went to see Bishop Tache in St Boniface (Winnipeg). Tache sent him to St. Laurent, Manitoba to stay with his old tutor, Fr Fourmond, pending a decision on his readmission. He spent a year there as a secular priest, among the Irish, French and Métis people at St Laurent and at Duck Lake.
In the United States