Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The canoe pilgrimage of Rigaud

Rigaud (Canada) (1910-1920)

The shrine of Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes de Rigaud, in Quebec, founded in the late 19th century, soon became a place for regional pilgrimage. And among its traditions is a particularly beautiful and very much of that land of rivers: the canoe pilgrimage.

In the first decades of the 20th century it is documented that groups of young people and families descended the Ottawa River in canoe and then went up to the sanctuary, wearing Marian banners and singing along the way, as a festive and confident way to express their devotion to the Virgin of Lourdes. One imagines the ships advancing through the water, the voices joining in the hymns, and in the end the ascending to the sanctuary to stand at the feet of the Mother.

A local chronicle keeps an episode that pilgrims lived as grace. On one occasion it was announced bad time; the group was entrusted to the Virgin and advanced the exit. Hours later a strong storm broke out, but they were already safe, and they interpreted it as a protection of Our Lady.

We should put everything in place. The documented thing is that there were these river pilgrimages to Rigaud in the early 20th century, collected in the press and parish bulletins that highlight their festive and devout character. The connection with the avoided storm is shown in pious key: it is not presented as an official miracle, but as a protection experience felt by the pilgrims themselves. There is no external assessment of the fact.

There remains, in any case, the picture: the faith that does not wait for everything to be comfortable, but it rams down the river, singing, to go to meet the Virgin.