Series PR0003.003SF.0007 - Sound Recordings series

450 reel-to-reels
3 audio reels
166 audiocassettes
1 vinyl album
7 compact disks

The series consists of recordings created in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories and beyond the geographical limits of the Oblate Vice-Province of Mackenzie. The recordings were created primarily at institutions the Oblates established or lived in: churches, missions, and First Nations communities. The recordings were created, collected or acquired by the Oblates of the Vice-Province in the course of their administrative and evangelization activities, and therefore the themes of the recordings are wide-ranging. The records include a number of religious themes and document the personal thoughts and viewpoints of a number of Oblates and highlight First Nations cultures and languages. A large number of the records were created by Oblate researchers, likely Robert Le Meur (1920-1985), and Maurice Métayer (1914-1974), who served in the Vicariate of Mackenzie.

Le Meur and Métayer conducted their own research and collaborated on various projects. They both served in various missions in the north, Le Meur from the 1940s to the 1980s, and Métayer, from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Specifically, the Le Meur and the Métayer recordings relate to research conducted by them in the north. The priests sought information on the culture, lives, history and religion of the Indigenous peoples, and they recorded the interviews, songs and stories of their research, providing insight into the lives of the people of northern Canada. There is a vast wealth of their written research in the Oblate fonds as well, related to genealogies, grammars and published stories and other writings.

Specifically, the records in this sound series consist of educational and historical themed material, recordings of masses, religious and secular ceremonies, lectures, sermons and religious commentaries, as well as radio broadcasts of songs, and recordings of stories and interviews. The stories, interviews and songs are often in First Nations languages, and English and French. Records are both created by amateurs, and professionally produced.