International Journal of Religious Tourism and
Pilgrimage
Volume 4 | Issue 1
Article 4
2016
Ritual Journeys in North America: Opening
Religious and Ritual Landscapes and Spaces
Daniel H. Olsen
Brigham Young University, [email protected]
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Olsen, Daniel H. (2016) "Ritual Journeys in North America: Opening Religious and Ritual Landscapes and Spaces," International
Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 4.
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© International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
ISSN : 2009-7379
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Volume 4(i) 2016
Ritual Journeys in North America: Opening religious
and ritual landscapes and spaces
Daniel H. Olsen
Brigham Young University
[email protected]
The religious landscape of North America is different from other regions of the world
in that not only is there a lack of a highly visible religious elements, but also the idea
and practice of pilgrimage and ritual travel is not as pervasive as in Europe and Asia.
However, there are many human-built and natural spaces marked by Roman Catholics,
Protestants, Mormons, Indigenous peoples, and members of other faiths which are
subject to either formal or informal pilgrimage-like travel. Visits to these sacred sites
have intensified with the rise and expansion of tourism after World War II, conflating
pilgrimage-like travel with tourism. As such, there has been an expansion of the term
‘pilgrimage’ to describe the visits of people to sites of historical, political and/or pop
culture importance. This paper examines the changing religious and ritual landscapes in
North America, and examines the case of tourism and pilgrimage to Martyrs’ Shrine in
Midland, Ontario, to show how ritual journeys in North America have become more
inclusive over time.
Key Words: religious tourism, North America, ritual landscapes
Introduction
North America is a rather religiously-rich region. Not
only does this region - in particular the United States stand out against other developed regions because of its
high degree of religiosity and high, albeit declining,
church attendance (Bibby, 2011; Eagle, 2011;
Flannelly et al., 2010; Hahn, 2010; Hutchins, 2015;
Massey and Higgins, 2011; Wilkins-Laflamme, 2012),
but also because it contains many unique and
exceptional religious landscape elements (Zelinsky,
2001; see Campo, 1998; Collins and Rhine, 2003;
Everett, 2002; Foote, 2003; Santino, 2006). For
example, in the United States the ratio of churches to
the general population probably exceeds that of most
world regions (Zelinsky, 2001). Also, mega-churches
dominate the edges of many North American urban
centers, religiously-themed billboards line many of the
region’s highways, and, according to CNN.com, North
America contains at least eight ‘must see’ religious
wonders (Beal, 2005; Chaves, 2006; Csomor, 2012;
Fentress, 2007; MacDowell, 1982; Olsen, 2015;
Thuma and Bird 2015; Warf and Winsberg, 2010;
York and Wilson, 2007; Zelinsky, 2001). As well, one
forgotten part of the North American religious
landscape is the proliferation of religious TV, radio and
Internet programming (Abelman and Neuendorf, 1987;
Buckser, 1989; Kong, 2001; Lochte, 2008; Ogbonda,
2005).
~ 34 ~
In the context of pilgrimage and ritual journeys,
Campo (1998) suggests that pilgrimage is alive and
well in the United States, noting three different types
of pilgrimage-like travel. The first type involves
religious pilgrimages by organized religious faiths,
which type the author addresses shortly. The second
type of pilgrimage-like travel involves what Campo
labels pilgrimages to sites of American civil religion,
where there is an:
inter-connection of God and country,
commemoration of heroes (legendary and
otherwise) and martyrs, and the attribution of
patriotic significance to the natural landscape
(Campo, 1998: 48).
Examples of the types of locations American and
international tourists visit that can be described as
pilgrimages to historico-religious spaces would include
America Civil War sites, the Mount Rushmore
National Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Martin
Luther King Memorial, the United States Holocaust
Museum, Niagara Falls, and national parks in general
(Bremer, 2004; Campo, 1998; Chidester and Linenthal,
1991; Downing, 1986; Jackson and Henrie, 1983;
Hasian Jr., 2004; Lennon and Foley, 1999; Linenthal et
al., 2004; Ross-Bryant, 2013; Shields, 1991).
The third type of pilgrimage-like travel involves
natural or historico-cultural institutions, landscapes,
Olsen
Ritual Journeys in North America
sites, and personalities that have not been absorbed by
either an organized religion or by the National Park
Service. This type of pilgrimage, like pilgrimage to
American civil religion sites, involves an expansion of
what we consider sacred space in modern society (see
Reader, 2007), where travel to sites of cultural
significance is attributed similar significance as given
to religious and spiritual pilgrimages. Examples would
range from disaster sites such as Ground Zero in New
York and the site of the Oklahoma City bombing
(Blasi, 2002; Conran, 2002; Foote, 2003) to the sites
and markers of the death of great musicians like Elvis
Presley, Steve Prefontaine and John Lennon
(Alderman, 2002; Davidson et al.,1990; Doss, 2008;
King, 1993; Kruse II, 2003; Wojcik, 2008), Walt
Disney World (Moore, 1980), sporting events
(Gammon, 2004; Norman and Cusack, 2012; Remillard
2015), Star Trek conventions (Porter, 2004),
genealogical research (Kurzwell, 1995; Otterstrom,
2008), bike trails (Crawford 2015), music more
generally (Intrepid Travel, 2014; Morales 2014;
Telegraph, 2014), and even shopping (Cusack and
Digance, 2008)! Even travel by U.S. political leaders to
speak to distinctly religious audiences or at sacred sites
has been termed ‘political pilgrimage’ (Coe et al.,
2015). It is interesting to note that much of the
academic literature discussing the expansion of what
constitutes sacred space and sacred journeys, with a
few exceptions (e.g., Hall, 2002; Hannaford and
Newton, 2008), seems to use examples from the United
States!
2001: 569). Or, it may be because of the fact that the
aesthetic exercises to and at major pilgrimage sites that
are common in Europe and South Asia are optional or
not required, at least within a Protestant North
American context. As such, pilgrimage as a
mainstream practice has not been fully incorporated
into the religio-cultural fabric of North America.
Therefore, it is surprising that much, if not most, of the
research on pilgrimage or other ritual journeys has
focused on regions outside of North America (e.g. Bar,
2003; Bauer, 2001; Egan, 2010; French, 1994; Huber,
2008; Kelner, 2010; Nolan, 1987; Nolan and Nolan,
1992; Olsen, 2013; Reader and Swanson, 1997;
Shahshahani, 2009; Shinde, 2010; Shuo et al., 2009;
Taylor, 2011; Werbner, 2010). This might be in part
because North America lacks the saturation levels of
religious elements such as sacred hills, groves, and
springs, sites linked to the lives of Saints or miraculous
events, roadside shrines, sacred effigies, and hilltop
crosses when juxtaposed with places such as Europe or
Asia (Zelinsky, 2001). This failure of the United States
to develop a similar European or Asian religious
landscape may also be in part because of the country’s
‘sheer newness’ regarding its religious landscape due
to the late date of European colonization of the North
American continent and the lack of a powerful staterelated church to create such a landscape (Zelinsky,
Transplanting Pilgrimage Traditions in
North America
~ 35 ~
With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to
correct this academic neglect and discuss pilgrimage
and ritual journeys within a North American context.
More particularly, the emphasis of this paper will be on
the trend towards greater inclusivity within the
pilgrimage market in North America with a particular
focus on how ritual journeys have been ‘opened up’ to
include wider publics and ‘glocalized’ traditions
(Ritzer 2003), which, the author argues, has come
about due in part to both the ‘transplantational’ nature
of North America and increased tourism visitation to
religious heritage sites. After discussing the
transplanting of pilgrimage traditions to North
American by immigrant and diasporic communities,
the author examines tourism and its relation to
pilgrimage and sacred sites. Then, through focusing on
the case study of the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland,
Ontario, Canada, the author illustrates how this
transplanting of pilgrimage traditions has made this
site more inclusive, expanding the site’s original
mandate of preserving the memory of Jesuit martyrs to
preserving the memory of martyrs from immigrant
homelands around the world.
North America has long been a region where ideas
about the sacred have been transplanted from other
regions around the world. Of course, the North
American indigenous population had their own ideas
of what constituted sacred spaces and sacred ecologies
prior to European imperialism and colonization (e.g.,
Gulliford, 2000; Harrod, 2000; Suzuki, 1992).
However, with the migration of European colonists to
North America, came new ideas of what constituted
sacred space, which led in many cases to the
indigenous population being displaced from their
sacred lands with their European conquerors either
destroying or building over Indigenous sacred and
ritual spaces (Prorok, 2003). While Indigenous groups
in North America have begun to reclaim their ancestral
sacred space (e.g. Beaman, 2002; Carmichael et al.,
1997; Lane, 2001; Michaelsen, 1995; Gulliford, 2000),
there are many continuing examples of Indigenous
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Volume 4(i) 2016
spirituality being appropriated and commodified by
New Age groups (Aldred, 2000; Huntsinger and
Fernández-Giménez, 2000; Timothy and Conover,
2006; York, 2001). However, there are also examples
of cultural blending between Native Americans and
Europeans, such as the successful religious
syncreticism between Native Americans and the
Roman Catholic Church with regards to pilgrimages to
the National Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine in Fonda, New
York, the National Shrine of the North American
Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, and the burial site
of Rose Prince near Fraser, British Columbia
(Densmore, 1941; Dauria, 1994; Fox, 1994; Holmes,
2001; Greer, 2004; Farley, 2010; The Canadian Press,
2013; CBC News, 2015) as well as to special events
such as the repatriation of Huron / Wendat bones in
Midland, Ontario (Seeman, 2011:141ff).
The Roman Catholic Church has also successfully
transplanted pilgrimage traditions in North America,
having established a number of pilgrimage destinations
replete with the sacred relics of martyrs, stories of
miracles and healing, Marian apparitions and patron
saints (Athens, 1989; Calverley, 1980; Hufford, 1985;
Horsfall, 2000; Nabhan-Warren, 2005; O’Malley,
2004; O’Neill 2012; Orsi, 1991; Pagliaroli, 2004;
Rinschede, 1992; Swatos Jr., 2002; Tweed, 2011;
Williams, 2010; Yuhaus and Frechette, 2006). While
Protestant denominations, due to the Protestant
Reformation and a strong emphasis on ‘the word’ over
ritual (Prorok 2003), have not established pilgrimage
sites per se like Roman Catholics, they do have, in
addition to revivals and Bible camps, commemorative
shrines in the United States that play a role in
American Methodist expressions of piety (Gunther,
1996; Messenger, 1999; Neville, 2005; Percy, 1998;
Tweed, 2000).
In addition to a strong Protestant and Roman Catholic
presence on North America’s religious landscape, the
Greek Orthodox Church, the Hari Krishnas, Eastern
Orthodox Bulgarians and Tamil Hindus have also
transplanted pilgrimage traditions and / or sacred
spaces in North America (see Mastagar, 2015;
Klimova, 2011; Prorok, 1986; Whitaker, 2015), and
minority religious groups such as Hindus, Muslims and
Buddhists have begun to transplant their religious
traditions and sacred spaces onto North America soil to
both heighten their cultural identity as well as to in part
sanctify the places within the United States and Canada
where they reside. For example, Hindus in North
America have been active in building temples and
~ 36 ~
establishing pilgrimage networks within the United
States (Bhardwaj, 1988, 1990, 1991; Bhardwaj and
Rao, 1998; Dempsey, 2006), Muslims have built
mosques and community centers in major urban
centers (Haddad and Smith, 1994; Schubel, 1996), and
Buddhists have established a network of temples
throughout the major urban centers of the United States
and Canada (Goldberg, 1999; Matthews, 2006;
Prebish, 1999; Prebish and Tanaka, 1998; Tweed,
1992).
Immigrant groups from places such as Cuba and Haiti
have also transplanted pilgrimage traditions to Roman
Catholic and Pentecostal shrines in the United States
(see Rey, 2004; Tweed, 1997). However, while there
are numerous instances of pilgrimage traditions being
transplanted into North America by immigrant faiths
and people, transplanting pilgrimage traditions can be a
precarious endeavor at best, particularly where host
societies may not be receptive to, or outright intolerant
of, their attempts (Prorok, 2003). Such is the case with
the controversy over the proposed Muslim cultural
center to be built blocks from the 9/11 site in New
York City (Batstone, 2012; Doss, 2011).
In her article ‘Transplanting Pilgrimage Traditions in
the Americas,’ Prorok (2003) noted a number of
strategies which immigrant groups to North America
have used to recover pilgrimage traditions, some of
which the author has alluded to earlier. The first
strategy is to co-opt existing religious sites and / or
ceremonies, as is the case with Taiwanese Americans
who have appropriated the San Francisco Chinese New
Year Parade to perform religious rituals related to
Mazu (Lee, 2011). The second strategy involves
maintaining links with a homeland. Instead of
recreating sacred spaces or pilgrimage traditions,
immigrant and diasporic groups in North America may
instead choose to travel back to their homelands for
pilgrimage purposes, such as American Jews travelling
to Israel (Cohen, 2003; Cohen Ioannides and
Ioannides, 2006; Collins-Kreiner, 2010a; Kelner,
2010), Croatian Americans going to Medjugorje,
Bosnia (Jurkovich and Gesler, 1997), African
Americans traveling to Senegal and the Gambia
(Ebron, 1999), American Muslims traveling to Mecca
to participate in the annual hajj (Clingingsmith et al.,
2009; Timothy and Iverson, 2006), and American
Hindus traveling to India to participate in religious
rituals (Kurien, 2002; Singh, 2006). In fact, a number
of organizations, such as Taglit-Birthright Israel,
Hillel, the Catholic Pilgrimage Center, the World
Olsen
Ritual Journeys in North America
Religious Travel Association, in addition to local
congregations and commercial travel agencies,
facilitate this travel of Americans overseas for
pilgrimage and ritual purposes (Wuthnow and Offutt,
2008).
The third strategy is to either recreate or reinvent
sacred sites. This is done through replicating an image,
temple, or other sacred object from the homeland; the
(re)recognizing of the sacred in the new migrant
location using traditional means of interpreting sacred
and hierophanic experiences; and creating movable
rituals, such as the Hari Krishna Holi Festival of Colors
which is performed in various destinations around the
United States (see www.festivalofcolorsusa.com). The
fourth strategy involves celebrating sites of sacred
embodiment, whether that involves travel to see holy
men and women or sites where such people are buried
or their relics are enshrined. The fifth and final strategy
is through ritual historicizing, which
entails the reification of particular historic
moments as epitomized in the structures,
people, and locational features associated with
those moments or periods of time (Prorok,
2003: 295).
These strategies are used by immigrant and diasporic
communities and groups, in part to remind ‘[them]
selves of [them]selves’ (Prorok, 2003: 298); to create
collective selfhoods and identities through making new
sacred spaces and ritual performances, and attaching
these communities to special places within their new
residences while concurrently honouring their former
homelands (Eade and Garbin, 2007; Johnson and
Werbner, 2010; Prorok, 2003). At the same time, these
acts of re-creating and re-inventing sacred spaces
means that ritual journeys and spaces that traditionally
were authorized and performed in their homelands
have been ‘opened up’ in North America, with the
potential for new or syncretic interpretations,
contestations, and practices to take place within a
North American context (Chidester and Linenthal,
1995), particularly in a ‘modern, transplanted, and
relatively
desacralized
[North
American]
present’ (Prorok, 2003: 285).
Religious Tourism
theoretical and practical viewpoints. Theoretically,
academics have long discussed the similarities and
differences, or the convergence and divergence,
between pilgrimage and tourism and pilgrims and
tourists (Cohen, 1992). While these two perspectives
have been discussed in detail elsewhere (see CollinsKreiner 2010b; Olsen, 2010), many scholars conflate
pilgrimage-like travel with tourism. They argue that
pilgrimage and tourism share some structural
similarities, where tourists, not unlike pilgrims, are
searching for quasi-religious authenticity, truth, and
self-actualisation through participating in the ‘ritual’ of
sightseeing and sacralising tourist attractions and
places - or ‘shrines of modernity’ as MacCannell
(1976) puts it. Thus, when tourists travel they, like
pilgrims, separate themselves from ordinary life, enter
a realm of ‘non-ordinary flotation’ (Jafari, 1987) or a
state of hyperreality (Eco, 1983; Holmberg, 1993),
experience a non-ordinary sacred ‘high’ (Graburn,
1989), and then return back to their profane life having had experiences akin to Turner’s (1973) ideas
of liminality and communitas in the context of
religiously motivated pilgrimage. At the same time, it
can be difficult to determine who is a pilgrim and who
is a tourist. This was a problem in Chaucer’s
Cantebury Tales, and it is a problem today, especially
when pilgrims and tourists often use the same
transportation and hospitality infrastructure and at
times seemingly behave the same (Olsen, 2010). As
Gupta (1991: 91) notes:
apart from the devotional aspect, looked at
from the broader point of view, pilgrimage
involves sightseeing, traveling, visiting different
places and, in some cases, voyaging by air or
sea, etc. and buying the local memorabilia,
almost everything a tourist does.
For these reasons, Hitrec (1990: 19) suggests that
modern pilgrims should perhaps be treated as
tourists rather than ‘true pilgrims,’ primarily
because of the evident fact that religious
tourism is combined with elements of ordinary
(profane) tourism.
Thus, the famous phrase: ‘a tourist is half a pilgrim, if
a pilgrim is half a tourist’ (Turner and Turner, 1978:
20).
From a more practical viewpoint, however:
Along with the transplanting of sacred spaces and
pilgrimage journeys, the opening of sacred spaces to
tourism consumption is another way in which ritual
journeys in North American have ‘opened up’ and
become more inclusive. This can be seen from both
~ 37 ~
tourism and its associated practices interact
with religious life and the institutions of
religion in virtually every corner of the world
(Bremer, 2005: 9260).
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Volume 4(i) 2016
In fact, it is estimated that around 200-600 million
people a year travel for religious purposes or visit a
religious site or event during their travels, half of
whom travel internationally (Jackowski, 2000;
McKelvie, 2005; Timothy, 2011: 387). This growth in
the religious tourism market has spurred scholars from
a number of disciplines to study the interface of
religion and tourism (e.g., Badone and Roseman, 2004;
Coleman and Eade, 2004; Collins-Kreiner et al., 2006;
Collins-Kreiner and Wall, 2015; Gladstone, 2005;
Olsen, 2013b; Raj and Morpeth, 2007; Stausberg,
2011; Swatos and Tomasi, 2002; Timothy and Olsen,
2006a; Vukonić, 1996). Government officials and
tourism promoters have also noted this increase in the
religious travel market, particularly after World War II
(Lloyd, 1998), and have begun to commodify religious
sites and ceremonies, marketing them - usually without
permission of the owning and operating religious
organization - to tourists at multiple scales as multi-use
cultural and historical resources that simultaneously
reach the educational, religious, heritage, and leisure
markets (Olsen, 2003). Indeed, tourism promoters, as
well as tourism researchers, tend to define religious
tourists in two ways. The first way includes ‘those
whose impetus to travel combines both religious
(dominant) and secular (secondary) motives,’ whereas
the second way involves anyone who ‘visits a sacred
site during their journeys to other attractions and
destinations’ (Timothy and Olsen, 2006b: 272). As
such, from a tourism industry perspective, pilgrimage
is just another tourism niche market, with pilgrims
being a type of tourist who makes visits to religious
and sacred sites. However, there are notable sectors of
the tourism and hospitality industries that cater
specifically to the religious needs of travelers (e.g.,
Huntley and Barnes-Reid, 2003; Ioannides and Cohen
Ioannides, 2002; Henderson, 2010; Olsen, 2010;
Weidenfeld, 2006; Weidenfeld and Ron, 2008). This
view of pilgrims as tourists and pilgrimage as a form of
tourism, of course, differs from those who take a
demand-side and / or religious perspective in defining
pilgrimage based solely on religious motivation (see
Olsen, 2010; Timothy and Olsen 2006b).
The interest by government and tourism officials in
directing tourist visitation towards religious sites in
particular has resulted in these sites exhibiting a
‘simultaneity of places’ (Bremer, 2006: 25) where
parallel geographies of religion and tourism intersect
and overlap. This hybridization of religious and
tourism space ‘blurs the lines’, so to speak, between
pilgrimage and tourism and the pilgrim and the tourist
~ 38 ~
(Kaelber, 2006). This ‘blurring of the lines’ can be
problematic for religious faiths that view certain sacred
spaces as taboo to the general public; where only
adherents or worthy initiates are able to enter. This can
be manifested at different scales, ranging from entire
cities such as Mecca to much smaller areas such as
sanctuaries at Roman Catholic churches (Olsen, 2010).
As well, at some religious sites casual tourists have
begun to outnumber devout religious believers (Winter
and Gasson, 1996; Shackley, 2001a). In these
instances, too many tourists not only damage the
aesthetics and ambiance of sacred sites - or their ‘sense
of place’ (Shackley, 2001a) - due to noise pollution,
but also impact the site physically through general
wear and tear / erosion and accidental damage,
microclimatic change, vandalism / graffiti and theft
(Olsen, 2006a; Shackley, 2001a; Woodward, 2004).
At the same time, this ‘blurring’ might be seen in a
positive light if religious faiths use their religious sites
to meet outreach, pastoral care or proselytization goals
(Olsen, 2011). For example, the Roman Catholic
Church use their religious sites to reach out to both
Catholic and non-Catholic travellers who are ‘on the
move’ (Vukonić, 2000). During the 19th Century the
Community of Shakers in North America encouraged
tourists to visit their communities in an attempt to gain
new converts (Sprigg, 1980), and presently, leaders of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints use
their historical and religious sites for both proselytizing
and pastoral purposes (Bremer, 2001; Hudman and
Jackson, 1992; Mitchell, 2001; Olsen 2006b, 2009,
2012a, 2012b, 2013a; Olsen and Timothy 2002). In
these instances religious sites are enthusiastically
opened to tourists in order to meet these organizational
goals. As well, religious sites might be opened to
tourists because of the need for tourism receipts whether gained through voluntary donations or
charging an entrance fee - particularly if religious site
managers are expected to raise money in order to
maintain the site’s facilities and pay for other mundane
operational costs (Olsen, 2006a, 2008). Therefore,
religious authorities may actively work with
government and tourism officials, where collaboration
is often seen as a win-win situation for all parties:
government and tourism officials see a boost in
tourism revenues and local economies through direct
tourism expenditures and tourism-related taxes while
the extra promotion gets more visitors to religious sites
(Tilson, 2001, 2005).
Olsen
Ritual Journeys in North America
As such, the increasing demand by the tourism industry
to include religious sites and ceremonies in their
competitive marketing efforts, the growing numbers of
tourists who visit these sites, the interest by some faith
organizations to increase tourist visitation to their
sacred sites, whether to meet organizational or
monetary goals, and the theoretical merging of
pilgrimage and tourism and the pilgrim and the tourist,
have metaphorically and literally ‘opened up’ ritual
journeys to a wide range of mobilities and possibilities
and raises questions pertaining to both what constitutes
a ritual journey and who is a pilgrim.
The Martyrs’ Shrine
To illustrate some of the above discussion, attention is
now turned to an example of a site in North America
that exemplifies this ‘opening up’ of ritual journeys to
become more inclusive regarding immigrant and
diasporic communities and tourism. The discussion
here of the case study, the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland,
Ontario, Canada, is based on historical sources as well
as interviews and observation done by the author at the
Shrine and the surrounding area in 2002, 2004 and
2012.
The Martyrs’ Shrine is located about a two hour drive
north of Toronto, Ontario. The Shrine was built in
1926 to honour Jesuit missionaries who were killed as
they attempted to promote Christianity to the Wendat
(Huron) indigenous population during the 1600s. The
first Jesuit missionaries, led by Father Jean de Brébeuf,
came to Wendake (sometimes referred to in history
books as Huronia), as this area of modern Ontario was
known, in 1626 to preach to the Wendat population. As
missionary efforts produced modest yet promising
results, additional Jesuit priests were sent to the area.
In 1639 Father Jerome Lalemant, the new Jesuit
superior of the region, began construction on a
permanent place of residence from which missionary
activities would be conducted. A large fortified village
was constructed with large stone and wooden walls,
and included a hospital, a blacksmith shop, a European
farm and numerous other buildings to house the
Jesuits, their helpers, and visiting Wendat. Thus, Sainte
-Marie, or the ‘Abode of Peace’ (Cranston, 1997: 31),
was founded and became the center of Jesuit
missionary work in this area.
During the 1640s there was continual warfare between
the Wendat and the Iroquois nations, and in 1649 the
Wendat were overrun and were forced to migrate from
the area. During this decade-long war, six Jesuit priests
~ 39 ~
and two donnés or lay assistants were killed (three in
present-day New York, USA), some in brutal fashion,
and in later years these were referred to collectively as
the ‘North American Martyrs’ (Anderson, 2013). Soon
after the deaths of these priests and donnés the decision
was made by the remaining Jesuits to leave Wendake
and joined a group of Wendat on Chimnissing Island,
before migrating in 1650 to Lower Canada (modernday Quebec), but, not before burning Saint-Marie to
the ground so the site would not fall into the hands of
the Iroquois (Anderson, 2013; Cranston, 1997; de
Brébeuf, 1993; Delaney and Nicholls, 1989;
Macdougall, 1992; Shaw, 1999).
It was not until 1844 that members of the Jesuit Order
returned to Huronia. The original site of Sainte-Marie
was discovered immediately but the Jesuits could not
purchase and excavate the site because of ownership
issues. In addition, sites of the martyrdom of the Jesuit
martyrs and other Jesuit mission sites were sought out.
A wooden shrine was built in 1906-1907 on the site
thought to be the place of the martyrdom of Brébeuf
and the other Jesuit priests (called Martyrs’ Hill),
which served as a site of devotion to all ‘Canadian
martyrs’ (i.e., the Jesuit priests that died in the service
of the faith). However, in 1925 the Martyrs’ Hill shrine
was dismantled as the historical authenticity of the
location was questioned and because the site was
unsuitable for pilgrimage, due to its distance from the
railway and its inadequate water supply (Delaney and
Nicholls, 1989). During this same year, construction on
the present shrine began, its location just northeast of
the original Sainte-Marie site. Construction of this
shrine took only nine months to complete and was
dedicated to St. Joseph, the Patron Saint of Canada and
Patron Saint of the Jesuit Mission to the Hurons (16341650) on June 25, 1926.
During the next few decades the Shrine grew into a
popular pilgrimage destination. This came about
because of the canonization of the eight Jesuit martyrs
in Rome in 1930. After this canonization, the Shrine
saw a surge in attendance, and in order to
accommodate the needs of these pilgrims the inn that
had originally been built beside the Shrine was
enlarged, a series of pageants were created and
performed, religious retreats at the Shrine were
organized, a gift shop was opened, and a newsletter The Martyrs’ Shrine Message - was started to keep
pilgrims informed of Shrine events and to catalogue
the healings and miracles that were taking place at the
Shrine. This interest in the Martyrs’ Shrine also
stimulated a number of archeological projects related
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Volume 4(i) 2016
Figure 1 : Photo of Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland, Ontario (used by permission of the Martyr’s Shrine Archives)
Figure 2. Map Showing the Location of Martyrs’ Shrine.
~ 40 ~
Olsen
Ritual Journeys in North America
to the graves of the martyrs and their site of
martyrdom. Not only was the Huron village St. Ignace,
where Lalemant and Brébeuf martyred, found and
excavated, but excavation work also began on the site
of Saint-Marie, which had finally been obtained by the
Jesuits in the 1930s (Anderson, 2013; Shaw, 1999;
Gordon 2004).
In the early 1960s there were discussions between the
Jesuits and the Provincial Government of Ontario
regarding the reconstruction of Saint Marie, where the
Provincial Government would pay for the
reconstruction and then take over Sainte-Marie as a
heritage tourism attraction. These discussions came
about in part because of the realization by both parties
that the story of the North American Martyrs was part
of a common Canadian heritage. To the Jesuits, the
story of the Martyrs needed to be shared with the
broader public, but only the Province had the money to
reconstruct Sainte-Marie. For the Government of
Ontario, this was an effort to preserve an important part
of Ontario’s history and also would improve tourism to
the area (Delaney and Nicholls, 1989; Shaw, 1999;
Gordon 2004). The Jesuits were initially reluctant to
give up this important historical site to secular
interests, and the Government of Ontario had concerns
over the financial and political risks of such a
reconstruction project. However, in 1963 the Jesuits
and the Government of Ontario entered into an
agreement, with Saint-Marie being leased to the
Government for 99 years at the cost of one dollar. The
site (named Sainte-Marie among the Hurons) opened to
the public in 1968, and today serves as a popular
heritage tourism attraction, complete with 25
reconstructed buildings, costumed first-person
interpreters, a themed interpretive museum, a
restaurant, a gift shop, and a number of educational
programs for visitors, related to fire-starting, historic
clothing and medicine, Native games and storytelling,
historic cooking, quill pen writing and the making of
corn
husk
dolls
(see
http://
www.saintemarieamongthehurons.on.ca/sm/index.htm).
During, and after World War II the Shrine began to
subtly change its focus from honouring the sacrifice of
the North American Martyrs. According to one
interviewee, during World War II the Shrine was seen
as ‘a symbol of hope and a home of peace’ by many
Roman Catholics who would travel to the Shrine to
pray for the end of the war. After World War II
immigrants from European countries, such as Italy and
Germany, but more particularly, eastern countries such
as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Croatia,
~ 41 ~
would come to the Shrine to pray for the liberation of
their homelands or family members who were living
under communist rule. Pilgrimages by these Eastern
European immigrant groups became a yearly
occurrence and eventually they erected monuments on
the Shrine grounds in memory of those who suffered
persecution under communist rule. In the past two
decades, other ethnic immigrant groups from regions
such as South Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America,
and China have made pilgrimages to Martyrs’ Shrine
to erect monuments for the religious and political
martyrs as well as popular saints in their homeland
(Anderson, 2013; Shaw, 1999). For example, Italian
Catholics have built a Shrine to an Italian Jesuit
Missionary Fr. Guiseppe Bressani who lived with the
Wendat in the 17th century but who was not one of the
North American martyrs, Portuguese Catholics have
built a shrine to Fatima, Tamil Catholics have built a
shrine to Our Lady of Mudhu, and the Jesuit order has
built shrines to honour St. Joseph and other prominent
figures in Jesuit history.
At the same time, the Martyrs’ Shrine also became the
most popular tourist attraction in the Midland, Ontario
area, attracting over 100,000 visitors a year starting in
the 1990s. However, even though the site is located in
a highly popular recreational area, only an estimated
10% of visitors to the Shrine are classified as ‘tourists’.
As well, visitation to the Shrine is highly seasonal.
This occurs in part because the Shrine was built so
quickly that no heating facilities were installed. As
such, the Shrine is only open from May-September /
October, and therefore, the majority of visitors come to
the Shrine in the summer months with very few
visiting in the winter months. However, while tourists
make up a small percentage of those who visit the site,
the management at Martyrs’ Shrine has long been
involved in promoting the site to tourists.
For example, in 1995 a tourism consortium in the
Midland area was formed, in which hotels and
stakeholders in the recreation and cultural heritage
tourism market joined forces to promote tourism to the
Midland area generally and to the specific tourism
attractions within the region. The managers of Martyrs’
Shrine readily agreed to join this consortium. While
many religious organizations are concerned with
secular interests in their sacred sites (Olsen, 2003,
2006b), as a self-sustaining shrine the managers here
were interested in increasing revenue through gate
receipts via tourism. As well, based on the outcome of
Vatican II, managers of Catholic religious sites were
encouraged to both open their sites to non-Catholics as
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Volume 4(i) 2016
a part of a program of outreach as well as to interact
more fully with the tourism economic sector to ensure
that tourism was developed in an ethical and
sustainable way (Vukonić, 1996, 2006; Olsen, 2010).
This was made clear in an official document entitled
The Shrine (Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of
Migrants and Itinerant People, 1999) in which Catholic
shrines are considered ‘a meeting place of all
humanity’. As such, the managers at Martyrs’ Shrine
have made visitation more inclusive, inviting nonadherents to visit the site to gaze at and possibly
participate in the worship rituals.
In order to cater to the needs of visitors the managers
of the site have over the years built a café, a gift shop,
the Martyrs’ Hall Museum and Education Center, the
Lalande Hostel, and more recently have begun to offer
guided tours of the Shrine and its grounds, provide
links from their website (www.martyrs-shrine.com) to
surrounding accommodations and recreational /
tourism attractions, offer a ‘Walk where they walked’
day program run jointly by the Martyrs’ Shrine and
Saint-Marie Among the Hurons, and have created very
detailed maps of a new pilgrimage path that leads from
the city of Barrie to the Martyrs’ Shrine for those who
wish to make a walking pilgrimage to the site (see
http://martyrs-shrine.com/visit-us/pilgrim-route-to-martyrsshrine/). This pilgrim path takes travellers past the site
of The Mission of St. Ignace II, the site of the
martyrdom of two of the North American martyrs, Jean
de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalement, and also follows
traditional Wendat trails, allowing the descendants of
the Wendat to make a connection with their ancestors.
In addition, because of the emphasis on
commemorating martyrs from various ethnic groups,
there are special ‘cultural pilgrimages’ where each
weekend is dedicated to a specific ethnic group
(Anderson, 2013). So, for example, one weekend
during the summer months would be dedicated to
‘Korean pilgrimage,’ while the following week might
involve two smaller cultural pilgrimages, such as a
‘Chinese pilgrimage’ and an ‘Indian/Pakistan
pilgrimage’ (http://martyrs-shrine.com/events-calendar/).
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper has been to consider the
inclusive nature of ritual journeys in North America.
The religious landscape of North America is unique
and quite diverse with a large variety of human and
natural spaces marked as sacred by Roman Catholics,
Protestants, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, Indigenous
~ 42 ~
peoples, and members of other faiths which are subject
to either formal or informal pilgrimage-like travel.
Particularly within a North American context there has
been a conflating of pilgrimage-like travel with
tourism, with the term ‘pilgrimage’ being used to
describe the visits of people to sites of historical,
political and / or culture importance (Campo, 1998).
However, because the practice of pilgrimage and ritual
travel is not as pervasive as in Europe and Asia,
scholars have tended to ignore ritual travel and sacred
space in the context of North America.
In this paper the author has attempted to rectify this in
part by looking at how ritual journeys in North
America have become more inclusive over time, partly
because of the transplanting of pilgrimage traditions to
North America by immigrant and diasporic groups and
partly because of the rise of tourism to religious sites
and sacred spaces. This ‘blurring of the lines’ between
religious and tourism space has in many cases ‘opened
up’ religious sites in North America to new types of
visitors and new types of interpretations, as
governments, tourism officials, and religious
stakeholders work together to increase visitation to
religious sites. Of course, in North America there are
many examples of religious sites where ritual journeys
have become more inclusive. One example was
discussed in this paper - Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland,
Ontario - to show how ritual journeys to this site have
become more inclusive over time. Future research on
ritual journeys can focus on additional case studies of
sacred sites that also exhibit this type of inclusiveness.
At the same time, more research on ritual journeys in a
North American context are needed, both in terms of
how pilgrimage ‘works’ in North America as well as
how pilgrimage and ritual journeys in North America
fit within the overall theoretical frameworks academics
have developed regarding pilgrimage and ritual
journeys.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their
comments on this paper. Also, I am indebted to Steve
Catlin, Deputy Curator at the Martyrs’ Shrine for his
comments on this paper, and grateful to the Martyrs’
Shrine Archive for the photo of the Shrine included in
this paper.
Olsen
Ritual Journeys in North America
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