Metis Coffee talk is a weekly broadcast every Thursday at 7:30 pm from the BC Métis Federation covering important Métis news and cultural topics. July 18th 2013 a special guest Father Guy Lavallee will be in studio with your host Keith Henry.

Père Guy Lavallée, is a Métis Oblate priest born at St. Laurent, Manitoba, the son of Pierre Lavallee (b. 1884) and Madeleine Beauchamp (b.1891), both from St. Laurent. He is the youngest of fourteen children. Both parents spoke Saulteaux and Michif French. In addition, his father spoke Swampy Cree and was often brought in to Winnipeg hospitals to act as an interpreter for northern Cree speaking patients. His father was a hunter, fisherman and blacksmith.

Père Guy is affectionately known as “Pchi Père.” He has a lifelong concern with preservation of the Michif language and collecting Elders’ historical and lifeways accounts. He grew up in St. Laurent, Manitoba where he attended elementary school. He went to the Junior at de Saint-Boniface and Le Collège Mathieu in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan for his high school and classical course. In 1960, he entered the Oblate Father’s noviciate in St. Norbert, Manitoba. He studied Philosophy and Theology at the Scholasticate in Lebret, Saskatchewan and at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa.Father Lavallée was ordained as an Oblate priest in his home parish on July 6, 1968.Early in his career he ran Winnipeg’s core area St. John Bosco Centre (1968-1971) and served as a director of the Winnipeg Indian and Metis Friendship Centre, where he was honoured by having his picture posted on their “Wall of Fame.”

During the summer of 1971 he was Director of the Indian Pavilion at Man and His World—Expo ’67 in Mont-real. Following this he went to St. Mary’s church at Fort Frances, Ontario. He then returned to Montreal and from 1972-74 was Director of the Catholic Foreign Missions Office and working part-time for the National Indian Brotherhood. From 1974 to 1977 Fr. Lavallee was pastor at OO-ZA-WE-QWAN training centre at Rivers, Manitoba, and also served as pastor to the Rolling river and Sioux Valley Reserves. He was President of the National Oblate Conference on Missions from 1976 to 1981.

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