The institutional history of Pères Montfortin, which is located at the north end of Lac Heney. Sonny Gagne’s recollections bring that institutional history vividly to life:
In the early 1960s, a priest would say Sunday Mass at the beach at Baie des Prêtres. He would stand on the beach dressed like a lumberjack with a lumberjack shirt.Residents of the lake would pull up in their boats, stay in their boats and would attend Mass. When asked whether or not the priest would give out Holy Communion, Sonny responded “How would I know, I’m not Catholic”.
Sonny would attend the event for the novelty. Sonny said that the priest was a particularly fine individual who would visit cottages on the lake and it didn’t matter what religion the cottager practised. Sonny also recalled that there would be nuns who would reside in the little cottages on the other side, that is the east side, of Baie des Prêtres. They could be seen swimming in their “bathing suits”. Sonny points out that they were hardly bathing suits because the only area exposed would be the ankles. Sonny and the other men of the lake seem to have had fun teasing the nuns. “If the men approached in their boats, the nuns would run back into the bush.”
