North-Western Territory
In 1845, Chief Factor Roderick McKenzie wrote to Bishop Joseph-Norbert Provencher to request the establishment of a mission at Île-à-la-Crosse. The same year, Provencher received another letter from Jean-Baptiste Thibault, who perceived that it was urgent for the Catholic Church to send missionaries to Île-à-la-Crosse because of the eagerness of the Métis to convert and the imminent competition with Protestants. The Hudson’s Bay Company controlled the region outside the Red River Colony, known as the North-Western Territory or Rupert's Land, through strict management of transportation systems leading to their established trading posts. This gave the company implicit control to confine missionary activities to the Red River Colony]. The ban remained in place until the decision by George Simpson, the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, granted missionaries access prompting the Catholic mission network to extend into the North-Western Territory.