RO LLO BAY (St. A/exis)

HIS PARISH had its beginnings at Bay

Fortune where a number of Acadian families lived from the mid 1700s and

where they had a small chapel.

In 1804 the people built a little church close to the shore which under direction from Bishop Plessis of Quebec they dedicated to St. Alexis. For a number of years several priests from France visited the people at Bay Fortune and with the rest ofIsland Catholics they

welcomed two Quebec bishops . during their pastoral visitations of i 1803 and 1812.

Gradually the Catholic population moved farther north and there in 1853 they built a much more spacious church which they enlarged and remodeled in 1870.

Father Walker arrived in 1880 as their first resident pastor and shortly thereafter the people erected an attractive parochial house. He served as pastor there for 46 years and a small chapel over his remains draws attention in the parish cemetery Parish priests lived at Rollo Bay until 1999.

In 1930 the parishioners constructed the present large and graceful church on the same site as the 1853 building which they moved across the road to serve as a hall for a number ofyears.

A mission church. dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima‘ opened in the New Zealand end of the parish in 1936 and after decades of faithful use it was officially closed in the summer of2001.

Father Wa/ker’s tomb

Superb scenery abounds, first from the peaceful waters of Rollo Bay and then by the great spread of the North umberland Strait. Fertile and active farm lands extend throughout the region. St. Alexis Parish today numbers 240 families and shares its pastor with neighboring Souris.