Chrétien Le Clercq

Who is Chrétien Le Clercq?

Father Chrétien Le Clercq, a Franciscan Récollet, and a zealous Roman Catholic missionary to the Mi'kmaq on the Gaspé peninsula in the mid-17th century, was also a distinguished historiographer of Nouvelle France who wrote two early histories and adapted an apparently native mnemonic glyph system into a writing system known as Míkmaq hieroglyphic writing.

A Fleming by birth, he joined the province of the Récollets of St. Antoine, in Artois, and went to Canada in 1673. On 11 October 1673, he was put in charge of the Micmac mission by Mgr de Laval. He learned the language of that tribe and devoted himself to its evangelization. In 1676 he tried to persuade the Micmacs that it would be more advantageous to build houses in the French manner, which earned him a stunning rebuke from the Micmac Chief. His superiors sent him to France in 1680 on business connected with the Franciscan missions in Canada; he returned in the following spring with letters authorizing the foundation of a convent in Montreal, where he went during the summer of 1681 to carry out this work. In the month of November he went back to the Micmac mission, where he passed in all twelve years of his life.