ÉMILE-JOSEPH LEGAL
Born 9 Oct. 1849 at Jean-de-Boisseau, diocese of Nantes; died 10 Mar. 1920 at Edmonton. Ordained priest in 1876, in 1879 he became an Oblate of Mary Immaculate and arrived in north-west Canada in 1881. For sixteen years, amid great hardships, he evangelised the Indian tribes known as the “Piedineri.” In 1897 he was appointed coadjutor bishop, and in 1902 bishop of St-Albert. In 1912 this diocese was raised to an archdiocese under the title of Edmonton, of which Mgr Legal became its first archbishop.
His principal pastoral concern was the organisation of new parishes for the ever-growing number of immigrants; in fact, the Catholic population rose from 16,000 in 1902 to 40,000, despite the loss of almost half the territory with the erection of the diocese of Calgary.