Following La VÄrendrye's explorations of the Western plains in the 1730s, the voyageurs who travelled into the region, especially in the service of the Nor'Westers after 1783, mingled with the native people. Their offspring were called "MÄtis". In 1818, Bishop Plessis of Quebec sent out Fathers Joseph-Norbert Provencher and SÄvÅre Dumoulin to serve the needs of the Catholic community. Provencher became Bishop in 1822, and began the educational institutions which remain as the heart of the Franco-Manitoban community today. In 1844, welcomed the Grey Nuns who soon took up residence in the house built for them (on the right). The Nuns established a school, an orphanage, and built the first hospital in Western Canada. The building was in use until the 1960s when it was transformed into a museum. Provencher's cathedral burned down in 1863. A century later, in July 1968, another was to undergo the same fate. Provencher's cathedral was immortalized in the words of John Greenleaf Whittier:
