The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Father Denis Bourbonnais has been in Flin Flon longer than any other religious leader and has no plans to leave just yet. Father Denis was born in Winnipeg in 1928, received his education there and worked for Trans Canada Airlines for about 10 years. He was very active in his church, singing in choir as well as the local glee club. He managed a boys hard ball team which was where he was first introduced to looking after and supervising youth who came out of the home for boys and who wanted to play ball. When asked if the boys could join the team, Father said his only requirement was that they have a baseball glove and a pair of cleats. Father felt he would like to do more for the boys and asked his priest if there was somewhere he could take courses, etc. to help these young men. The priest recommended the seminary and Denis went in to become a priest, becoming ordained in 1965, at the age of 37 years. He was the assistant pastor in many parts of Ontario and Manitoba including Fisher Branch for eight years. In 1985, he was asked if the would be interested in going up into the North and he agreed. See 'I'll' P.# Con't from P.# He found himself in Gillam for two years, while they were building the Limestone dam. In 1987, he was asked to go to Flin Flon and what would normally be about a six year posting has now become almost 17 years. When asked if he had plans of leaving any time soon, he laughingly replied: "At 75? I'll stay here until I retire or am offered a 'little job' such as a chaplain at a hospital." When asked if there was a set retirement age for priests he said: "We work until we are 65 and if in good health (these are the best years of our life) then we work until we are 71 and then we are evaluated, if we want to stay and there is a need, until 75. After that we are evaluated every year because some guys don't know when to quit, and as long as there aren't many complaints (he laughs) I'll stay." When asked if he has noticed many changes in the church and the 'Catholic' attitude he replied: "Yes, actually I began to notice right after the war when the soldiers came back with war brides especially in the city, people appeared less rigid in their thinking." He went on to say that they had the best of teachers in the seminary during the ecumenical transition with lots of experts who accompanied the bishops. Experts in every branch of religious studies such as scripture, liturgy and morality. He said when he came out of the seminary he became part of the Ministerial Association which included all religions such as Anglican, United, Lutheran and Catholic. He stated that one week in 1969 there was a ministerial meeting sponsored by the Manitoba Mental Health Organization with ministers from all the major religions. He said he was one of the youngest at 41. There was lots of experience and the conversation was so open, "it was a great thing for me." Some of them were mental health doctors or specialists in the medical field. He stated: "It was an eye opening experience, I had heard of ecumenicism but had never actually seen it." The ministers actually admitted that being married wasn't necessarily a good thing in the "religion business" because there were the pressures of the job as well as family life. Father talked about his time in Birtle, a small community of 2,000 people, and said smaller communities are closer knit with everyone celebrating each other and sharing. They are there for each other in the good times and the bad. He said Flin Flon is similar in that it is small enough for people to care about one another regardless of faith and yet big enough to have such things as the Community Choir and marriage preparations classes. He said that in his church the Catholic Women's League and the Knights of Columbus are very active and that he is lucky in that the resource people he has are excellent. He also said that he has been very lucky since he has come here, in that he has had the best religion co-ordinators that a person could find. He also stated that luckily the parish has enough money to make changes. When asked about the future, Father says: "As long as I am healthy I'll stay right here. There have been no young priests expressing an interest, right now anyway, of coming North." Traditionally, Ireland produced a lot of priests but now they are importing them, the same can be said for France and Italy. More and more of the work will be done by lay people all over the world. It is what is known as "shared leadership". We are a Eucharistic Church meaning the Eucharist has to be celebrated at all services, or it is not a Catholic service. All the sacraments are tied to the Eucharist. When asked what he thought of the Alpha program that seems to have taken off in town, he replied: "I encourage people who want to take part in Alpha to do so but I personally am not involved." He also stated: "The Alpha program is quite similar to the early years of Christianity when people got together to enjoy a meal and sing praises to the Lord. Eating has always been a part of celebrating. Once in awhile is enough for some people, once a year for others, and for some once a week is necessary. It seems in the busy lifestyles that people live nowadays, we don't have time to eat together anymore." Here is a bit of history of St. Ann's parish: St. Ann's was moved to the former Sir Maurice Roche School in the late '70s. It was originally on Church Street right next to the old General Hospital (where the Personal Care Home is now). And the pretty little church known as St. Paul's was built in 1957 and was demolished in September of 1987, where the parking lot for St. Ann's is now. Sir Maurice Roche School was the one and only Catholic School ever held in Flin Flon. It was established in the late '50s, early '60s. The school was named after Maurice Roche who was the assistant general manager of HBM&S. He was largely responsible for the building of the Phantom Lake Golf Course. He was knighted by the Knights of Columbus for all his humanitarian work for the community. There were nuns who were Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary who taught the years the school was open. The school was closed in about 1976 because of decreased enrollment.
