Nicolas Viel (d. 1625) made his profession of faith in 1598 with the Recollets of the province of Paris. Having been appointed a missionary to Canada in 1623, he travelled to the Huron (Wendat) country, where he spent two years. While canoeing downriver towards Quebec with some Huron companions, he drowned in mysterious circumstances at the last rapids of the Rivière des Prairies. Among his fellow-travellers was a young Huron man named Ahuntsic, who is said to have suffered the same fate. Some contemporaneous writers had no hesitation in proclaiming Father Viel the first martyr of the faith in Canada.

VIEL, NICOLAS, Recollet priest, missionary in the Huron (Wendat) country; b. near Coutances, France; d. 25 June 1625.

Nicolas Viel made his profession with the Recollets of the province of Paris in 1598. Having been appointed a missionary to Canada in 1623, he left Paris on 18 March with Brother Gabriel Sagard and reached Quebec on 28 June. On 16 July 1623 he left Quebec, together with Sagard and Father Joseph Le Caron, for the Huron country. He spent two years there, studying the language and taking notes, which enabled him to supplement Father Le Caron’s dictionary. In 1624 his two companions returned to Quebec, leaving him behind with nine other Frenchmen.

At the end of May 1625 Father Viel decided to go to Quebec. He set off with some Hurons who were heading there for the fur trade. When they reached the last rapids in the Rivière des Prairies, the three Hurons in the canoe with him allegedly threw him into the water and he drowned. A young man named Ahuntsic, who was following in another canoe, reportedly witnessed the event and suffered the same fate. This occurred on 25 June 1625, at the place that became Sault-au-Récollet; Viel’s body was recovered from the water a few days later and buried at Quebec.

The accounts of Sagard, Jean de Brébeuf, Paul Le Jeune, and Chrestien Le Clercq contributed to establishing the tragic narrative in which, for unknown reasons, Father Viel was murdered. The Roman Catholic Church has never commented on this event. While some contemporaneous writers had no hesitation in proclaiming Father Viel the first martyr of the faith in Canada, more recent historiography tends to favour the theory that his death was an accident.

G.-M. Dumas

ASQ, mss, 200, Mortuologe des Recolets. Le Clercq, First establishment of the faith (Shea), I, 203f., 236, et passim. Sagard, Histoire du Canada (Tross). C.-P. Beaubien, Le Sault-au-Récollet: ses rapports avec les premiers temps de la colonie (Montréal, 1898), 47–91. R. Desrochers, Le Sault-au-Récollet, paroisse la Visitation (Montréal, 1936). Archange Godbout, “Le néophyte Ahuntsic,” BRH, XLVIII (1942), 129–37. Jouve, Les Franciscains et le Canada (1615–1629). Hugolin Lemay, “L’œuvre manuscrite ou imprimée des Récollets de la mission du Canada (Province de Saint-Denis) 1615–1629,” RSCT, 3d ser., XXX (1936), sect.i, 115–26. Le père Nicolas Viel (Notes bibliographiques pour servir à l’histoire des Récollets du Canada, II, Québec, 1932).

Bibliography for the revised version:
For an explanation of the hypothesis that Father Viel’s death was an accident, see, among others, Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France, II: 340–342, and “Document 32,” in Monumenta Novæ Franciæ, Lucien Campeau, ed. (9v., Rome and Quebec City, 1967–87; Rome and Montreal, 1989–2003), 2: 79–82.

Cite This Article

G.-M. Dumas, “VIEL, NICOLAS,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed January 29, 2026, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/viel_nicolas_1E.html.

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Permalink:   https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/viel_nicolas_1E.html
Author of Article:   G.-M. Dumas
Title of Article:   VIEL, NICOLAS
Publication Name:   Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1
Publisher:   University of Toronto/Université Laval
Year of publication:   1966
Year of revision:   2026
Access Date:   January 29, 2026