The religious community of the Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin was founded in the province of Québec, at Saint-Grégoire near Nicolet, in 1853 as a teaching community by Fr. Jean Harper and Léocadie Bourgeois, the first Mother Superior. In 1872 the mother-house of the community was definitely established at Nicolet and from there, missionary groups went to rural parishes in the dioceses of the Province of Québec.

The Sisters came to Western Canada in 1891 to the Oblate mission of Onion Lake, in Saskatchewan, as a result of Bishop Vital Grandin’s need for missionary teachers. From Onion Lake the Sisters spread quickly to other Roman Catholic missions in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In addition to native communities, the Sisters served the francophone population in Western Canada. Outside Canada, the Sisters worked in the United States, Brazil and Japan.

The community was divided into various ecclesiastical provinces. Alberta and Saskatchewan belonged to the ecclesiastical Province of St. John the Evangelist, administered by a Provincial office located in Edmonton, until 1998 when this ecclesiastical Province disappeared; Alberta and Saskatchewan are now directly under the administration of the community mother-house or head office in Nicolet, Province of Québec.