Saints Isaac Jogues, John de Brébeuf and Companions

In the seventeenth century French Jesuits came to New France to live among the Huron (Wendat) people near Georgian Bay, in present-day Ontario. Saint John de Brébeuf learned the Huron language, wrote a catechism in it and is remembered for the "Huron Carol." The missionaries shared the hardships of the people through epidemics and wars between the Huron and the Iroquois.

Between 1642 and 1649 eight of them were killed: the lay missionary René Goupil (1642), Isaac Jogues and Jean de Lalande (1646) at Ossernenon, today Auriesville, New York, and Antoine Daniel, John de Brébeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier and Noël Chabanel in Huron country (1648–1649). Jogues had earlier been captured and mutilated, escaped to France and returned anyway. Brébeuf and Lalemant died after terrible torture in March 1649. Pius XI canonized all eight in 1930.

In the United States their memorial is kept on October 19 (in Canada on September 26). Pilgrims visit the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, and the Martyrs' Shrine near Midland, Ontario, built next to the reconstructed mission of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons.

They are honored as secondary patrons of Canada.