The Reverend Charles Alfred Marie Paradis

Photo by Alan L Brown - March 27, 2006

Plaque Location

The District of Nipissing
The Municipality of West Nipissing
In Verner, on the north side of Principal Street just west of Hwy 64 one block south of Hwy 17

Plaque Text

Born in Kamouraska County, Québec, Paradis studied at Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière College and taught art in Ottawa. Following his ordination in 1881 he was posted to Lake Timiskaming as missionary of the Oblate Congregation. Paradis' travels as a missionary provided information for his pamphlet "From Temiskaming to Hudson Bay". In it he strongly recommended the colonization of the region. After leaving the Congregation in 1890, he encouraged many French-Canadian farm families from Michigan to settle in the region of Verner and took up farming himself. An enterprising individual, he prospected for gold at Nighthawk Lake, wrote, painted in water colour and worked on the compilation of an Ojibwa dictionary. He died in Montreal on May 10, 1926.