It’s said that 60 per cent of Fort Victoria’s population in 1858 spoke French.
A fully Francophone newspaper, the Courrier de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, launched that year, as did one of the city’s first schools, St. Ann’s Schoolhouse, on the grounds that later became St. Ann’s Academy.
The Sisters of St. Ann, who taught at the schoolhouse, did so in French.
“Fort Victoria’s labourers were French speaking, which is why the Sisters came here, out of a need to educate the children of the labourers,” says Julie Cormier, executive director of the Friends of St.