news&views Spring 2015 | Page 28

100 years BY

LOU DUIGOU

This is a time in the history of our province when families often celebrate one hundred years or more of having arrived in Alberta as immigrants from many parts of Europe . Last year , 2014 , marked the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Ulliac-Duigou-Cosperec-Le Rouzic families from Gourin , Brittany , France . Upon their arrival in Alberta , they settled in an area northeast of Edmonton between Lac La Biche and Athabasca . There they established farms near Charron Lake and Plamondon . They named the place they settled Gourin after their hometown in France .

In 1914 , Joseph and Marie-Louise Ulliac , both aged fifty-four , decided to move to Canada in order to give their children and grand-children a better life . There were fourteen persons in the group that arrived in the area following a seventeen-day trip across the Atlantic in a ship called The Sicilian and a five-day train ride to get to Edmonton . They attended Mass on Palm Sunday before boarding a train to Athabasca the very next day . There , they purchased horses and wagons to complete the journey to the Plamondon area .
Why did they decide to emigrate ? Simply put , life was not great in the old country . All these young people really had no future other than to work as sharecroppers or farmhands — a meagre existence indeed , with no hope of ever becoming significant landowners . In Europe , there was also the constant threat of war , which did occur in 1914 .
The decision to emigrate was not an easy one . Some wanted to come to Canada ; but some wanted to go to Algeria , a French colony at the time . But , finally , grand-mère Ulliac put her foot down and said , “ Either we all go together , or no one goes .” So , off to Canada they went .
By 1937 , Gourin , Alberta , had a school , Gourin School , which became part of the Lac La Biche School Division in 1955 . Gourin Post Office opened in 1923 , and a store opened in 1937 . Both
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