Mr. Meyer is a professor of English at Mankato
State College. Readers of Minnesota History are familiar
with his earlier articles and hook reviews. His History
oi the Santee Sioux was published recently hy the
University of Nebraska Press.
The CANADIAN SIOUX
Refugees from Minnesota
ROY W. MEYER
AT THE END of the Sioux Uprising of
1862, fewer than two thousand of the approximately
6,300 Minnesota Sioux were accounted
for. Some eight hundred of the
Lower Sioux and nearly all of the Upper
Sioux had fled to the Dakota prairies, where
pursuit that autumn was impracticable. Besides
those who later surrendered or died
during the military campaigns of 1863 and
1864, some three thousand eventually settled
down on the Sisseton and Devils Lake reservations
in Dakota Territory or on the Fort
Peck Reservation in Montana. The remainder,
after drifting back and forth across the
border, finally settled in the British possessions
to the north. They were granted tracts
of land after that region was transferred
from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada
and largely severed their ties with their
American brethren. Since that time they
have been pretty much ignored by Americans.
Yet their subsequent history, closely
'^ Nor'-Wester (Red River Settlement), September
11, 1862; Gontran Laviolette, The Sioux Indians
in Canada, 25, 48 (Regina, Saskatchewan, 1944);
Alexander Begg, History of the North-West, 1:349
(Toronto, 1894). Information on early contacts between
the Sioux and the Red River settlers is found
in Alexander Ross, The Red River Settlement: Its
Rise, Progress, and Present State, 55, 162-164, 324-
332 (Reprint edition, Minneapolis, 1957).
Spring 1968
paralleling that of the Santee Sioux in the
United States, deserves to be told for the
light it sheds on Indian policy in the two
countries.
News of the uprising did not reach Fort
Garry until nearly three weeks after it had
begun. From that time until the first parties
of Indians arrived late in December, the
population was in a state of nervous expectation.
The Sioux had occasionally appeared
in the Red River Settlement since 1821 and
had always professed friendship for the
British, brandishing George III medals on
their visits. Nevertheless, the settlers there,
comparatively defenseless and believing the
most extreme reports of the horrors committed
in the Minnesota River Valley, were
understandably apprehensive.*
According to a later historian, none of the
eighty-six Sioux who appeared at Fort
Garry on December 28 had been involved
in the outbreak, and only fifteen were from
the lower bands. Contemporary accounts
paint a different picture. The Nor-Wester,
a newspaper published at Fort Garry, said
that one of the Indians boasted of having
killed thirteen whites; the Indians' apparel,
it added, showed that they had been plundering.
"We loathe the very idea of the
Hudson's Bay Company welcoming these
13
wretches," editorialized the paper, "seeing
that they are only just fresh from butchering
innocent families in Minnesota."-
The ^^'elcome extended them was extremely
cool. After meeting them at the
Sale River and unsuccessfully trying to induce
them to turn back. Governor Alexander
G. Dallas of Rupert's Land reluctantly
allowed them to come to headquarters and
gave them lodging in the courtroom at the
fort. There they spent the next three days
"eating, drinking, making peace and making
merry," according to the Nor-Wester. Their
mission seems to have been to determine
the feelings of the local Indians and metis
toward the Sioux; they made no appeal for
asylum or even for food, though they must
have been hungry. On December 31 they
left the fort and headed back to Devils
Lake, where they were spending the winter.
The Nor-Wester warned that the bread and
pemmican given them by the authorities
were the surest means of encouraging them
to return.^
Although reports reached Fort Garry
later in the winter that the uprising's leader.
Little Crow, was going to visit the settlement,
he did not actually appear there until
late in May, 1863, when a party of about
eighty, including a few women, arrived and
asked for an interview with the authorities.
The request was granted, and Little Crow
displayed British medals and flags that he
and his men had inherited from their
fathers. The latter, he said, had been assured
in the War of 1812 that if they ever
got into trouble with the Americans, they
should appeal to the British and the "folds
of the red flag of the north would wrap
them round, and preserve them from their
enemies."* He complained that his people
had been deceived in the exchange of prisoners
(at Camp Release, near present-day
Montevideo, the previous September) and
asked Governor Dallas to write General
Henry H. Sibley requesting the release of
the warriors then in custody. In his letter to
Sibley, Dallas remarked that Little Crow
had stated "in general terms their wish to
14
make peace, but if refused they must fight
in self defence."^
Little Crow made two other requests of
the Hudson's Bay Company authorities:
that he and his people be allowed to settle
north of the border and that they be given
provisions and ammunition. Dallas rejected
the first outright, saying that there was no
game for them to hunt in the vicinity of the
fort. Since they were evidently starving, he
gave them some provisions, but he refused
to issue them ammunition, even though
they insisted that they would use it only
for hunting. He pointed out that he could
scarcely intercede for the Indians with Sibley
while at the same time providing ammunition
to the American officer's enemies.^
AFTER LITTLE CROW and his people
left. Fort Garry was not troubled by the
Sioux until November 20, 1863, when a
small party arrived, followed by a much
larger group on December 11. They kept
coming until there were about six hundred
and camped at Sturgeon Creek, along the
Assiniboine River about six miles west of
the fort. Having been deprived of their
winter food supplies and other property by
the campaigns of Generals Sibley and Alfred
Sully, they were in a state of extreme destitution
and largely unarmed. Although many
were believed to have been deeply impHcated
in the uprising, driving them away
by force would have been tantamount to
murder, and they were aided from both
public and private sources.'^
^ Joseph J. Hargrave, Red River, 266 (Montreal,
1871); Nor-Wester, January 24, 1863.
^ Hargrave, Red River, 266; Nor-Wester, January
24, 1863.
* Nor-Wester, February 9, May 12, June 2, 1863;
Hargrave, Red River, 290, 291 (quotation).
' Dallas to Sibley, June 3, 1863, Office of Indian
Affairs, Letters Received, St. Peter's Agency file, in
National Archives, Record Group 75.
" Hargrave, Red River, 291; Nor-Wester, June 2,
1863.
^Hargrave, Red River, 313-316; Dallas to
Thomas Fraser, Secretary, Hudson's Bay House, December
11, 18, 1863, in Papers Relating to the Sioux
Indians, 4, 5 (London, 1864). A photocopy of this
was provided by the Public Archives of Canada.
MINNESOTA Histofy
The Sioux were anything but popular in
the settlement. "Meet anybody, now a-days,
and the topic is at once. The Sioux the
Sioux!" commented the Nor-Wester of December
17, 1863. "Are there any more in?
Have any gone away? What are they coming
for? Are these the actual murderers, or
are they merely aiders, abettors and accomplices?
How many are there of them?" In
earlier years small parties had visited occasionally
on specific missions and left soon;
but now they were appearing by the hundreds,
bag and baggage, with no aim but to
get food and escape the "long-knives," as
they called the Americans. They would beg
from house to house and then return to
their tipis. So desperate were they that
many sold their children. A Sioux child was
valued at the same rate as a young ox.
Drought and the partial failure of the fall
buffalo hunt had placed the settlers in a position
where they scarcely had food enough
for themselves, let alone a horde of mendicant
Indians.^
Governor Dallas faced a real dilemma.
"The fact is," he wrote the secretary of
Hudson's Bay Company, "we cannot conviently
afford either to quarrel with or to
maintain the Sioux, and there is no middle
course to adopt" — except, of course, to let
them starve, which would have been hazardous
as well as inhumane. Besides
offering them food, clothing, and even ammunition,
he went so far as to provide eight
horse sledges for them to carry their sup-
^Nor'-Wester, January 18, 1864; Hargrave, Red
River, 315; Dallas to Fraser, December 11, 1863, in
Papers Relating to the Sioux Indians, 4.
" Dallas to Fraser, December 18, 1863, in Papers
Relating to the Sioux Indians, 4. Dallas later denied
having issued any ammunition to the Indians. See
Dallas to Fraser, February 24, 1864 (extract), in
Papers Relating to the Sioux Indians, 10.
"William Mactavish to Fraser, December 25,
1863 (extract), in Papers Relating to the Sioux Indians,
5; Hargrave, Red River, 315; Nor-Wester,
January 18, February 5, 18, 1864; Alvin C. Gluek,
Jr., "The Sioux Uprising: A Problem in International
Relations," in Minnesota History, 34:319-323 (Winter,
1955).
"Hargrave, Red River, 319, 339; Nor'-Wester,
May 10, September 1, 1864.
plies and infirm to a place where they could
hunt and fish. At first they rejected even
this magnanimous offer. They said they preferred
to die in the settlement rather than
on the plains.'^
Finally, however, the combination of inducements
seems to have worked, for on
December 25 they left the immediate vicinity
of the fort. Unfortunately, they went
only as far as White Horse Plain, about
twenty-five miles up the Assiniboine. Then
they spread out around the country in small
bands, some going to Lake Manitoba,
where they caught so many jackfish that by
late February they were reported to be selling
fish to the settlers. Urged by the authorities
of both countries to surrender, a few
took the advice and gave themselves up to
Major Edwin A. C. Hatch, who had been
placed in command of a special battalion
then stationed at Pembina. Two alleged
ringleaders in the outbreak. Little Six (or
Shakopee) and Medicine Bottle, were
spirited across the border after being rendered
helpless with alcohol and chloroform.*°
The Sioux remained in the vicinity of the
Assiniboine Valley until spring, when they
departed with the metis for their annual
buffalo hunt. Then late in August an even
larger incursion took place, as an estimated
350 lodges, or nearly three thousand souls,
descended on the settlement. They were
destitute and starving as a result of the
destruction of their supplies by General
Sully's forces at Killdeer Mountain earlier
that month. William Mactavish, who had
succeeded Dallas as governor of Rupert's
Land, met them at Portage la Prairie and
tried to detain them there. But Standing
Buffalo, Waanatan, The Leaf, and Turning
Thunder, the last three accompanied by
their entire retinue, insisted on going on to
Fort Garry. Like those who had been there
the previous winter, they behaved circumspectly,
committing no depredations along
the way to the fort.**
In keeping with protocol, they displayed
medals given them by the British long ago
Spring 1968 15
Standing Buffalo
and reminded the governor of the promise
that whenever they needed assistance, they
should call on the representatives of the
Crown. Mactavish refused them any help
but told them they could barter with
traders on the plains on the same basis as
the native Indians. At this rebuff they apparently
became desperate and began seizing
whatever they could lay their hands on.
According to contemporary accounts, they
invaded fields and stole potatoes, corn, and
even wheat; they returned to the farms by
night and took livestock. They entered
houses, took what they wanted and even
demanded to be allowed to cook the potatoes
they had stolen. Some visited the
homes where they had sold children the
previous winter and reclaimed the youngsters.
Two churches were entered and valuable
objects stolen.^^
This was the last great invasion by the
Sioux of the Fort Garry vicinity. Though
they drifted back and forth across the border
for several years, no sizable numbers
returned to the fort. They tended rather to
congregate at Portage la Prairie, Poplar
Point, and High Bluff, all pioneer settlements
at varying distances up the Assiniboine.
In midsummer of 1865 some 680
lodges were said to be scattered at various
points to the west of the fort. The Sioux
were hungry and living on roots, eggs, and
birds, but traders dissuaded them from visiting
the settlement because it also was
short of food.^'^
Although the Sioux tried to avoid conflict
with the local Indians, the latter resented
any competition in an area where they
claimed exclusive begging rights. Reports
of clashes as early as January, 1864, seem to
have been unsubstantiated, but in May of
that year a party of Chippewa fired into
the tents of an encampment of Sioux on
Lake Manitoba, killing or mortally wounding
about twenty. And in June, 1866, Standing
Buffalo and part of his band visited
Fort Garry and were attacked as they left.
Since four men were killed, the white settlers
expected retaliation and called upon
the authorities to raise a force capable of
keeping the war parties apart. To their
surprise, the Sioux never returned.^*
Despite these periodic visits, few of the
Sioux had yet settled permanently outside
the United States. Most of those who feared
giving themselves up to the American authorities
roved over the plains without
much regard to the international boundary.
As late as 1867 Standing Buffalo and Waanatan
were reported, as they had been in
previous years, desirous of re-establishing a
treaty relationship with the United States
government. When a treaty was made at
Washington with the Sisseton-Wahpeton
Sioux on February 19, 1867, Bishop Henry
B. Whipple doubted its value because these
two chiefs had not been parties to it. After
^Nor'-Wester, September 1, 16, 1864. Hargrave,
writing some six years later, believed that many of
these depredations had been committed by local
Indians rather than Sioux. See Red River, 340.
^^Nor'-Wester, December 3, 1864; July 4[?],
1865; 2 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no.
23, p. 14.
^^Nor'-Wester, January 18, May 10, 1864; Hargrave,
Red River, 318, 396.
16 MINNESOTA Histoty
the Sisseton and Devils Lake reservations
had been established, small bands gradually
drifted southward and submitted to
reservation life.^^
A number, however, still distrusted the
American authorities and gradually came to
spend more and more of their time north
of the border. They supported themselves
by hunting, fishing, trapping, and working
for farmers in the harvest fields. By December,
1869, there were five hundred wintering
at Portage, including a group recently
arrived from the Mouse (now Souris) River
near the international border. More came
in 1870. They took no part in the metis
insurrection led by Louis Riel in 1869, although
rumors of an impending attack were
rife when a party of Sioux from Portage
approached Fort Garry and, according to
one account, were induced to return only
by being given presents.^^
AFTER LONG and delicate negotiations,
the Hudson's Bay Company's territorial
holdings were transferred to the new Canadian
Confederation, and in 1870 the
Province of Manitoba was created. The
Sioux then became the subject of considerable
interest to the federal authorities
charged with the management of Indian
affairs. Not until the native Cree and Chippewa
had ceded their lands to the Crown in
August, 1871, however, could the notion be
entertained of granting the refugees a reserve.
Less than three months after Treaties
1 and 2 had been signed, Wemyss M. Simpson,
the commissioner who negotiated
^•^ Charles A. RuflFee to Charles E. Mix, December
2, 1867, Office of Indian Affairs, Letters Received,
Sisseton Agency file, in National Archives,
Record Group 75; United States Indian Office,
Reports, 1869, p. 327; 1871, p. 535; 1872, p. 259.
^^ Laviolette, Sioux Indians in Canada, 109; Begg,
History of the North-West, 1:429.
" 1 Parliament, 1 session, Sessional Papers, no.
22, p. 31; 2 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 23, p. 13. For the Manitoba Act and Treaties 1
and 2, see Begg, History of the North-West, l:xl,
2:40-58.
" 2 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no.
23, p. 12.
them, wrote to the secretary of state for the
provinces, calling attention to the presence
of the Sioux in the Portage la Prairie vicinity:
"Since their appearance in British territory,"
he wrote, "they have, on all
occasions, conducted themselves in a quiet
and orderly manner, and although they acknowledge
the fact of their having no
claims upon Her Majesty, they look with
hope to her benevolence in their endeavors
to live in peace and quiet within her possessions."
Although they could not be
treated like the native Indians, Simpson
thought they should not be left uncared for
in the face of a growing scarcity of game,
which might "reduce them to a starving
and therefore desperate condition." Late in
December the lieutenant-governor of Manitoba,
Adams G. Archibald, submitted a dispatch
in which the matter was more fully
treated.*'^
No immediate results flowed from either
Simpson's or Archibald's reports, but about
a year later Alexander Morris, Archibald's
successor, urged that land be purchased for
the Sioux. Numbering about five hundred,
they worked for farmers in the summer
and wintered at Portage, where the settlers
complained of the expense and annoyance
caused by their begging. They had asked
for land as early as 1870, wrote Morris,
"and were led to believe . . . that they
would be assigned a Reserve, and if so,
they would plant crops and could then be
removed from the settlement." *^
An order in council, dated January 4,
1873, authorized the granting of a reserve of
twelve thousand acres to the Sioux. The first
location chosen, at the point where the
Little Saskatchewan River (now called the
Minnedosa) enters the Assiniboine, was rejected
by the Indians because it lacked timber
and because they wanted two or three
smaller reserves instead of one large one.
The commissioner charged with the selection
of a reserve, in company with the
chiefs, then chose two new sites: one on the
Assiniboine at the mouth of Oak River and
another near the Hudson's Bay Company
Spring 1968 17
Reserves where Minnesota Sioux settled in present-day Manitoba and Saskatchewan
post of Fort Ellice, at the junction of Birdtail
Creek with the Assiniboine. They were surveyed
in the summer of 1875 and were
found to contain roughly eight thousand
and seven thousand acres, respectively.
These locations apparently represented favorite
hunting grounds of the Sioux, for
none had taken up permanent residence
anywhere except at Portage la Prairie. With
the establishment of the reserves, the Sioux,
now said to number about 1,450, were encouraged
to locate themselves there and
begin building houses.^'^
The Canadian Sioux, like their American
counterparts, were at first reluctant to settle
down on their reserves. For a few years
the bulk of them continued to winter at
Portage or in the Turtle Mountains. Besides
the possibility of occasional donations
from the white settlers at Portage, the town
afforded a market for such furs as the Indians
might collect during the winter, and
the Turtle Mountains at that time provided
good hunting at all seasons. It should also
be noted that not all the Sioux in Canada
made even a gesture in the direction of
settling down on the reserves. There was
a considerable band under White Cap and
the son of Standing Buffalo whose favorite
camping place was the Qu'Appelle Lakes,
^"Laviolette, Sioux Indians in Canada, 111-113;
3 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no. 23,
p. 5; 2 session. Sessional Papers, no. 8, p. 9; 3 session,
Sessional Papers, no. 9, p. xi.
18 MINNESOTA HistOfy
Entrance to Standing Buffalo reserve, Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan
in present-day Saskatchewan. When two
commissioners appointed to treat with the
plains tribes met with White Cap in 1875,
he told them that his people had been in
the QuAppelle region for thirteen years
and wished to be left as they were, with
the privilege of hunting with the metis, and
did not want to settle on a reserve with the
other Sioux.2°
Even those who desired to locate permanently
were not all accommodated by the
two reserves set up in 1875. Besides the
Wahpeton at Birdtail Creek and the Sisseton
(plus a sprinkling of Mdewakanton) at
Oak River, there were a number of Wahpekute
roving in the vicinity of the Turtle
Mountains, where the infamous Inkpaduta,
leader of the Spirit Lake massacre of 1857,
was supposed to have lived for a time. For
their benefit a reserve was created in 1877
near Oak Lake and surveyed the following
year. Covering about four square miles, it
was located along Pipestone Creek and
^^3 Parliament, 3 session, Sessional Papers, no.
9, p. xxvii, 43.
^ 3 Parliament, 5 session, Sessional Papers, no. 10,
p. xvii; 5 Parhament, 2 session. Sessional Papers, no.
4, p. 65; Laviolette, Sioux Indians in Canada, 115.
The exact date that the Turtle Mountain reserve
was established is uncertain. See 6 Parliament,
1 session, Sessional Papers, no. 6, p. 182.
'^ 4 Parhament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no. 7,
p. 57, 60; 2 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4, p. 95, 98,
106; Laviolette, Sioux Indians in Canada, 116-118.
consisted mostly of open meadows and potentially
arable land. Because some of this
band refused to settle on the Oak Lake
reserve, another one was set up about 1883.
It consisted of a single square mile of land
on the north slope of the Turtle Mountains.^*
Although the Standing Buffalo and White
Cap bands, which separated in 1874, refused
to join their tribesmen on the
reserves, they continued to ask and receive
aid from the Canadian government. Given
agricultural implements and seed potatoes
in 1877 and instructed to plant at the
Qu'Appelle Lakes, they were without oxen
and hence accomplished little the next season.
When a reserve for them was proposed,
the two chiefs quarreled, each wanting the
same location. In the summer of 1878 they
informed David Laird, then Indian superintendent
for the North West Territories, that
the QuAppelle vicinity was not a suitable
place for their reserve and asked to be
allowed to settle on the South Saskatchewan
River.-- The impasse was resolved by estabhshing
two reserves, one at the Qu'Appelle
Lakes, the other at Moose Woods on the
South Saskatchewan, about eighteen miles
south of Saskatoon. They were surveyed in
1880 and 1881, though apparently the
Qu'Appelle reserve, which was named for
Standing Buffalo, had been officially designated
in 1878.
Spring 1968 19
Neither band was in a hurry to settle
down. For several years it was hard to get
an accurate census at Standing Buffalo because
the Indians were seldom all there at
one time and because they objected to
being counted. White Cap spent most of his
time off his reserve, sometimes at Prince
Albert, sometimes as far away as the Cypress
Hills, in extreme southwestern Saskatchewan.
Life at Moose Woods was hard
for those who did stay. The surveyor who
visited the reserve in 1880 said that in the
previous three years forty Indians had died
and the survivors were mostly elderly people.
The agent reported that when he arrived
there in May, 1881, he found many
destitute, and three or four who had died
were mere skeletons. He helped the Indians
plant a small crop and built eight houses.^^
Gradually the Sioux acquired a status
essentially like that of the native Indian
tribes. In 1878 an agent, Lawrence W.
Herchmer, was appointed for the Birdtail
Creek, Oak River, and Oak Lake bands.
Except for periodic visits by Indian inspectors,
the Standing Buffalo reserve was allowed
to shift for itself until the middle
1880s. White Cap's band at Moose Woods
received little direct supervision, although
in 1882 a farming instructor was hired for
a four-month period in the spring and summer.
There were other temporary appointments
in the following years, and in 1888
This Presbyterian
church is on the
Birdtail Creek
reserve at
Beulah, Manitoba.
William R. Tucker was named farmer-incharge,
a post he held for twenty years.^*
AS IN the United States, the primary aim
of Canadian Indian policy in the plains
region was to make independent farmers of
the Indians. Since the Sioux had gained valuable
experience in the harvest fields of
white settlers before being located on lands
of their own, it was to be expected that they
should be well ahead of the native Indians
in agricultural development. To a degree
this expectation was justified. It was a
source of repeated wonder to the inspectors
that these Indians should be doing so well,
comparatively speaking, at farming. After a
visit to Birdtail Creek in 1890, one of them
remarked, "I have not on any reserve seen
so many Indians so deligently [sic] employed
(each one on his own farm) at one
time — the most remarkable point being,
that as they have no farmer to oversee them
they set themselves to work and pursue it
with much judgment and industry." ^^
Despite such evidence of progress, the
^ 4 Parliament, 4 session. Sessional Papers, no.
6, p. xiii, 124, 125, 134; Laviolette, Sioux Indians
in Canada, 118.
^* 4 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no. 7,
p. 13; 5 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no.
5, part 2, p. 191; 8 Parliament, 2 session. Sessional
Papers, no. 14, p. 186; Dominion of Canada Department
of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1887, p. 75;
1897, p. 122.
20 MINNESOTA Histovy
Sioux did need some help and supervision
before they could become successful
farmers. For the first few years of Herchmer's
tenure as agent, all but the Birdtail
Creek band spent only the growing season
on the reserves and wintered at Portage or
elsewhere. One of the agent's main tasks
was to persuade them to give their yearround
attention to farming. In the belief
that teaching by example would be useful,
he opened a demonstration farm just off the
reserve and employed as many of the Indians
as possible there, paying them in
cash as well as in experience. Each year he
professed to see substantial progress toward
self-sufficiency. As early as 1880 the
Birdtail Creek band raised enough wheat,
corn, potatoes, and vegetables to last them
until the next crop and were able even to
sell three bushels of seed corn to a destitute
Chippewa band. As elsewhere on the Great
Plains, the principal reliance was on wheat,
although the Indians preferred to raise
corn, and they showed marked ability to
grow and preserve potatoes and vegetables.
Cattle raising was promoted for a time, but
as the supply of native hay diminished with
^ 7 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no.
18, p. 158. For similar comments, see Isaac Cowie,
Company of Adventurers: A Narrative of Seven
Years in the Service of the Hudson's Bay Company
During 1867-1874, 188 (Toronto, 1913); Department
of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1904,
p. 108.
-" 4 Parliament, 2 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4,
p. 70; 7 Parliament, 4 session, Sessional Papers, no.
14, p. 215; 5 session, Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 59;
Department of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports,
1880, p. 77; 1897, p. 122, 129; 1906, p. 150; 1909,
p. 111.
^ 4 Parliament, 2 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4,
p. 71; 5 Parhament, 1 session, Sessional Papers,
no. 5 p. 42; Department of Indian Affairs, Annual
Reports, 1880, p. 77; 1887, p. 169; 1888, p. 63, 163.
^ 4 Parhament, 4 session, Sessional Papers, no. 6,
part 2, p. 167; 5 Parliament, 1 session, Sessional
Papers, no. 5, p. 191; 2 session, Sessional Papers,
no. 4, p. 171; 3 session. Sessional Papers, no. 3,
p. 188; 4 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4, part 2,
p. 207-209; 6 Parhament, 1 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 6, part 2, p. 212; 7 Parliament, 1 session,
Sessional Papers, no. 18, p. 42; 8 Parliament, 2 session,
Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 186; Department
of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1887, p. 75; 1889,
p. 57.
repeated mowings, most of the cattle were
sold off. At Moose Woods there was an
excellent supply of hay, which enabled the
Indians there to remain stock raisers down
to the present time.-*'
The Indians did not wish to place their
reliance entirely on agriculture or stock
raising. After being assigned reserves, they
continued to hunt and trap, though the
game diminished steadily. As late as 1879
they were able to earn enough from the
sale of furs to buy necessary ammunition,
matches, tea, tobacco, and flour. As white
settlement spread, some of the Indians
found employment in cutting logs and putting
up hay for the settlers, and neai4y all
of the men continued to work in the harvest
fields. Herchmer lamented in 1882 that the
Indian found it easier to work for the settlers
than to farm. At Standing Buffalo the
reserve was virtually abandoned during the
harvest season, for the men took their families
with them. As towns grew up along the
railroads, the Indians were able to find employment
there, and the women sold baskets,
moccasins, mitts, and other articles to
the townsfolk.-'^ All in all, the Sioux got
along reasonably well despite not receiving
annuities from the sale of lands, as the native
Indians did.
Though without treaty obligations to the
Sioux, the Canadian Parliament did appropriate
regular sums for their support and
civilization. In 1880-81 Parhament appropriated
them $7,000. This was reduced to
$4,000 in each of the next three years and
then to $2,000 for the next several years,
plus supplemental grants from time to time
when emergencies arose. Most of the money
was spent for employees' salaries and for
implements, seed, and livestock needed to
get the Indians started farming. On most of
the reserves no rations were issued except
during seeding and haying, when they were
deemed necessary to keep the Indians from
leaving their fields to hunt or earn money.-'^
The repeated claim by the agents that the
Sioux were "almost self-supporting" was
accurate in the sense that the Indians were
Spring 1968 21
Contrasting houses: an unoccupied log cabin (left), built about 1928, and a frame
residence, built about 1961, at Oak River reserve, Griswold, Manitoba
feeding themselves on a day-to-day basis.
To build an economic base capable of
maintaining them indefinitely, however,
they required government assistance.
As part of the acculturation program carried
on by the Canadian government, religious
bodies were encouraged to open
Indian mission schools. Among the Sioux
the Birdtail Creek group seems to have led
in education. When Herchmer arrived to
take up his duties as agent, he found a Presbyterian
missionary already working among
the Indians, whom he represented as very
devout. Many were able to read and write
in their native language, some in English.
Indians on the other reserves were still entirely
"heathen," though a Church of England
mission had been built at Oak River.
There were no missions at Oak Lake or
Turtle Mountain for many years, and those
estabfished in the 1890s seem to have met
with fittle success. The Standing Buffalo reserve
acquired a Catholic day school in
1886. Though, like all the rest, it was
plagued by poor attendance, it struggled on
until 1895, when it was closed and the children
sent to the boarding school at Lebret,
Saskatchewan, founded in 1890 by the
Oblate Fathers. A day school under Methodist
auspices was operated at Moose Woods
for about fifteen years, beginning in 1890.^9
Although the Indians at Birdtail Creek
were the most advanced, possibly because
the agent had them under his immediate
22
supervision, their reserve did not prove the
most attractive. As time passed, more and
more of the Indians moved to Oak River,
since the beginning much the largest in
population. The land there was good, the
main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway
passed nearby, and there were towms, such
as Brandon, close enough to provide a
ready market for crops. Oak Lake and
Turtle Mountain remained somewhat backward
in acculturation. Occasional cheerful
reports by agents notwithstanding, there
seemed general agreement that the Oak
Lake people had little disposition to "better
themselves"; they preferred to hunt, fish,
and work for settlers rather than improve
their own lands. The people at Turde
Mountain, though self-supporting as long
as game was plentiful, were inclined to
wander and were constantly entertaining
parties of Sioux from across the border, only
six miles away.^°
Standing Buffalo was also characterized
as somewhat unprogressive. Besides spend-
^ 4 Parliament, 2 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4,
p. 11, 72; 6 Parhament, 1 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 6, p. 119; 7 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional
Papers, no. 18, p. 64, 159; 3 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 14, p. 151; 8 Parhament, 2 session,
Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 145; Department of
Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1880, p. 77; 1889,
p. 58; 1895, p. 138, 143; 1908, p. 161.
•'"' 6 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no. 6,
p. 121; 7 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 18, p. 43; Department of Indian Affairs, Annual
Reports, 1887, p. 76; 1888, p. 164; 1895, p. 143.
MINNESOTA Hlstory
ing much of their time off the reserve, the
Indians of this band built their houses in
a ravine extending back from the lake
rather than up on the prairie where the
best land was found. Not until the early
1890s did they begin moving up on to the
"bench," and then only under pressure from
their agent. The White Cap band made a
better record for itself. Once the alarming
population decline had been arrested and
a successful cattle-raising economy established,
the Moose Woods reserve earned
the praise of most of the inspectors who
visited it.^*
HIGH MORTALITY, not only at Moose
Woods but at all of the Sioux reserves, disturbed
the agents. Until about the end of
the nineteenth century, the death rate usually
exceeded the birth rate, sometimes
dramatically — as in 1885, when eleven out
of the eighty-eight heads of family at Oak
River died, together with seventeen children
under the age of three. The agents
conjectured that the high death rate, chiefly
from pulmonary diseases, was caused by a
change in diet from heavy reliance on meat
to a greater use of cereals and vegetables.
Some blame was also attached to the transition
from an outdoor life, with tipis the
only shelter, to the congested conditions of
^^ 7 Parliament, 2 session, Sessional Papers, no. 14,
p. 161; 3 session, Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 81;
4 session. Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 215; 8 Parliament,
5 session, Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 186;
Department of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports,
1906, p. 150; 1908, p. 161.
^- 5 Parliament, 2 session. Sessional Papers, no. 4,
p. 64; 4 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4, p. 61; 7
Parliament, 2 session, Sessional Papers, no. 14,
p. 162; Department of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports,
1895, p. 143; 1897, p. 123.
'" 5 Parhament, 2 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4,
p. 64; 3 session. Sessional Papers, no. 3, part 1, p. 70,
part 2, p. 188; 4 session, Sessional Papers, no. 4,
p. 61;'Department of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports,
1895, p. 143.
'*7 Parliament, 1 session, Sessional Papers,
no. 18, p. 43; 4 session, Sessional Papers, no. 14,
p. 56; 5 session. Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 58;
Department of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1880,
p. 77; 1887, p. 76; 1888, p. 63; 1889, p. 58; 1895,
p. 138, 142; 1897, p. 122.
Spring 1968
unsanitary log cabins. Moreover, the Sioux
were simply not reproducing as rapidly as
the other Indian tribes of the region. This
the agents could not explain.^^
As in the United States, agents inveighed
against the Indians' overindulgence in
whiskey, which they believed caused some
of the deaths. If their reports can be
trusted, Herchmer and his successor, J. A.
Markle, were reasonably successful at keeping
Indians and whiskey apart and even
instilled in their charges a willingness to
abstain when the temptation presented itself,
which it did increasingly as railroads
were built and towns sprang up.-^'^
Whatever their success as temperance
campaigners, there is no doubt that the
agents were on the way toward helping the
Indians achieve self-sufficiency by the mid-
1880s. Then the series of droughts that
caused so much trouble on the American
Great Plains began. On Indian reservations
in Canada, as in the United States, much of
the ground that had been gained was lost.
The first bad year was 1886; then, with a
few exceptions, the cycle of drought continued
until 1895, when a return of more
adequate rainfall brought better crops, and
the progress toward self-sufficiency resumed.
By the time of World War I the
Canadian Sioux were self-supporting to
much the same degree as white farmers on
the Great Plains.^^
Meanwhile, two more reserves had been
created. At the time the Moose Woods reserve
was established, the Indians assigned
to it were spending much of their time in
and near Prince Albert, where seasonal
jobs were available. As early as 1880 a
farming instructor was employed to look
after destitute Indians, including 750 Sioux,
in the Prince Albert area. The figure may
have been exaggerated, but there were a
number of Sioux in the vicinity, both Teton
and members of the White Cap band, who
still lived in tipis and had apparently never
come under civifizing influences. No specific
provision was made for these people
until 1890, when some tentative moves
23
Early photograph taken on one of
the Canadian Sioux reserves
were taken to select a reserve for them.
About a year later a school was opened
under Presbyterian sponsorship.^^
The designation of a reserve for these
Indians was complicated by their lack of
interest in farming and their wish to be
close to Prince Albert. Not until 1894 was
a suitable tract found, a block of four sections
at Round Plain. It consisted mostly of
burned-over timberland, with hay meadows
scattered here and there. It recommended
itself as a home for Indians because there
were fish in the nearby river and berries
grew profusely. Apparently these attractions
were not sufficient, for very few families
could be persuaded to move on to the
reserve. In 1908 two sections in an adjoining
township were added in hopes that
these would prove more suitable.^^
Round Plain (now called the Wahpaton
Sioux reserve) has remained the poor relation
among those occupied by the Canadian
Sioux. In 1908 the agent described the
buildings as one-room, sod-roofed log huts,
of less value than those on any of the other
reserves under his jurisdiction. Tuberculosis
and scrofula still took a heavy toll of the
Indians there; few of the children reached
maturity. Those who camped near Prince
Albert earned their food and clothing but
lived "miserably in every other way." Although
in 1910 he thought he saw a shift
from berry picking and the sale of wood
and hay to cattle and grain raising, three
years later only thirty-seven of the sixty-six
Sioux were on the Wahpaton reserve, and
they were still living in the old way.^'^
The other reserve created in the 1890s
constituted a belated recognition of the
little band of Sioux that had been in
Canada longer than any other. When the
first reserves were set up in 1875, a few
Indians remained at Portage la Prairie, sinking
deeper into poverty as the years passed.
About 1886 they were "taken in hand," as
a later inspector expressed it, by local white
citizens. A school was started, and the Indians
were induced to begin saving money
^ 4 Parliament, 4 session. Sessional Papers, no. 6,
p. ix; 7 Parliament, 2 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 14, p. 137, 199, 240; 3 session, Sessional
Papers, no. 14, p. 222; 4 session, Sessional Papers,
no. 14, p. 179, 217; Department of Indian Affairs,
Annual Reports, 1880, p. 102. The Teton were
members of the Sitting Bull band, who had fled to
Canada after the Battle of the Little Big Horn in
June, 1876. Long after the refugees from Minnesota
had settled down on reserves, these Plains
Sioux were still dwelling in tents and trying to eke
out a living by hunting, fishing, and occasionally
working on farms or in towns like Moose Jaw. In
1913 a reserve was created for them at Wood
Mountain in southern Saskatchewan. See Laviolette,
Sioux Indians in Canada, 120.
'^"7 Parliament, 6 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 14, p. 178; 8 Parliament, 4 session. Sessional
Papers, no. 14, p. 132; Department of Indian Affairs,
Annual Reports, 1895, p. 174; 1904, p. 147;
1908, p. 160.
^^11 Parliament, 3 session, Sessional Papers, no.
27, p. 125; 12 Parhament, 3 session. Sessional
Papers, no. 27, p. 140; Department of Indian Affairs,
Annual Reports, 1908, p. 160.
24 MINNESOTA Histofy
to buy a tract of land. When they had
accumulated $400, they purchased twentysix
acres on the Assiniboine River within
the limits of the town. The Presbyterian
church built a chapel for them on this land,
and a nonreservation Sioux village developed.
Its occupants supported themselves
mainly by working for farmers and townspeople.
In 1898 the Canadian government
finally took notice of the little community
and granted a 109-acre lot in a location less
subject to flooding. But as before, the Indians
preferred to stay where they were.
At last the government acceded to their
wishes and exchanged the lot previously
set apart for a much smaller (twenty-five
acres) but more acceptable one just west
of the city. They eventually moved there,
and most of the band remained, even when,
in 1934, the government purchased a much
larger tract adjacent to the Long Plain Chippewa
reserve.^^
Although a measure of forced acculturation
was present in Canadian Indian policy
as in that of the United States, the pressure
seems to have been less. The agents strove
to supplant wandering with sedentary
habits, but this was a matter of economic
necessity. The fact that as late as 1904 nearly
half the Sioux were classified as pagan indicates
that no such religious persecution was
directed against their aboriginal beliefs as
prevailed in the United States.
The disdain felt for Indian customs is
reflected in the agents' reports, which stigmatize
the dances as "give-away affairs"
and report with approval their gradual
'^Laviolette, Sioux Indians in Canada, 114; 8
Parliament, 4 session, Sessional Papers, no. 14, p. 78;
9 Parhament, 1 session, Sessional Papers, no. 27,
p. 87; 2 session. Sessional Papers, no. 27, p. 89;
3 session. Sessional Papers, no. 27, p. 98; 11 Parliament,
3 session, Sessional Papers, no. 27, p. 94,
104; 12 Parliament, 1 session. Sessional Papers, no.
27, p. 105, 113; 3 session. Sessional Papers, no. 27,
p. 110; Department of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports,
1904, p. 93.
'"" 9 Parliament, 4 session, Sessional Papers, no. 27,
p. 207.
^ Department of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports,
1908, p. 107; 1916, part 1, p. 126.
Spring 1968
abandonment and the regularization of
marriage practices. Now and then someone
would become righteously indignant and
take vigorous action. In 1902 Inspector
Alexander McGibbon arrived at Oak Lake
to find the Christian faction planning a
Christmas tree and social, while the pagans
were getting ready for a powwow and
dance. When McGibbon learned that the
latter were building a dance house in the
brush, he and some Indian allies found it
and leveled it. "No more dancing-houses
will be heard of at this place," he grimly
predicted.^''
More characteristic, however, was the
attitude of an agent writing in 1908. Commenting
on the generally high morality of
the Sioux, he remarked, tolerantly, "Sometimes,
perhaps, from our point of view they
are a little lax on the marriage question;
but a transfer of a good horse will quickly
and quietly settle a disagreement or damages
and set things running again as before."
Evidence also of a growing tolerance
was the substitution in the religious census
of 1916 of the term "aboriginal beliefs" for
"pagan." '^^
IN GENERAL, Canadian Indian pohcy has
not been characterized by the sharp fluctuations
and reversals that have been seen
in the United States. There was no attempt
to hurry the Indian into citizenship by
breaking up the reservations as in the
Dawes Act of 1887, and hence there was no
comparable dissipation of the Indians' land
resources and no need for such legislation
as the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.
By the time of World War I the Canadian
Sioux had long since settled down to a
placid life as small farmers, though continuing
to derive a portion of their income
from off-reservation employment. Government
assistance was limited to the services
of an agent, partial support of schools, and
occasional issues of seed grain when
drought or hail had wiped out the Indians'
crops. Until after World War II life for the
Sioux in Canada was a steady linear pro-
25
gression, marked neither by spectacular improvement
nor by noticeable retrogression.
Perhaps the most dramatic fact about
the Canadian Sioux in the twentieth century
has been the tremendous increase in their
numbers. From the time they were settled
on reserves until just about the turn of the
century, their total population declined
steadily. Birdtail Creek, for example,
dropped from 143 in 1884 to sixty-five in
1900, and Oak Lake fell from seventy-eight
in 1884 to thirty-seven in 1896. For the
entire group of Sioux descended from the
Minnesota refugees the lowest point was
reached in 1899, when they totaled 897.
They increased to 903 in 1904 and to
917 by 1916. The climb continued in later
years, and on January 1, 1964, the population
of the seven reserves occupied by these
people was 1,922 — more than twice their
numbers a half century earlier.^^ As in the
United States, the causes of this impressive
population growth were a generally higher
birth rate and a lower death rate, the latter
the result of improved medical treatment.
Unfortunately, the increase in numbers
has not been accompanied by a corresponding
improvement in the Indians' economic
condition. Since World War II the Canadian
Sioux, like other plains tribes, have suffered
an economic setback caused by
changes in the pattern of agriculture in the
wheat-growing regions. World surpluses
have depressed prices, wdth the severest
effects being felt by the small operator.
The Indian, necessarily a small operator by
virtue of the land available to him, has
Unoccupied house
on the bleak
Wahpaton Sioux
reserve north of
Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan
been further handicapped by his inability
to use the reservation lands as collateral for
loans. The result has been that the Indians
have almost ceased raising wheat, which
was formerly their principal cash crop.
Since technological advances in farming
have reduced the need for seasonal labor,
the Indians have been hard pressed to
make a living. Many have been thrown on
the relief rolls. Cities and towns provide
some jobs, but there is no parallel in
Canada for the massive migration away
from the reservation that has taken place
in the United States in recent years; hence
Indians tend to stay on the reserves, recipients
of provincial and federal welfare.^^
^^ 5 Parliament, 3 session. Sessional Papers, no. 3,
p. 207; 8 Parliament, 2 session. Sessional Papers,
no. 14, p. 142; 5 session. Sessional Papers, no. 14,
p. 491, 493, 498; Department of Indian Affairs,
Annual Reports, 1904, part 2, p. 76-79; 1916, part 1,
p. 126; Department of Citizenship and Immigration,
Indian Affairs Branch, Traditional Linguistic and
Cultural Affiliations of Canadian Indian Bands, 25,
26, 27, 28 (Ottawa, 1964). These figures should be
taken as approximate, for they vary widely from year
to year. Since the figures for Moose Woods were
not given in 1899 or 1904, the 1900 and 1906 numbers
were substituted in arriving at totals. In 1964
there were 343 other Sioux in Canada, presumably
descendants of the Teton who crossed the border
in 1876 and later.
^Letter to the author from N. J. McLeod, November
18, 1965, and interviews with Mr. McLeod,
August 13, 15, 1966. Before his retirement Mr.
McLeod was regional director of Indian affairs for
Saskatchewan. He reports that except for a few of
the prairie Indians "who have continued to raise
beef cattle or have left their reservation to become
engaged in other industries the great majority are
today dependent upon a monthly reUef cheque for
their existence."
26 MINNESOTA HistOfy
On the surface the Sioux reserves in Manitoba
and Saskatchewan present a favorable
appearance to a visitor from the
United States. The economic distress of
their occupants is partially masked by an
ambitious housing program that on some
reserves has placed most of the people in
neat new dwellings. Oak River presents the
most satisfactory prospect. It has the largest
amount of good land, the largest number
of farmers actually working their land, the
largest number of new pastel-painted
houses. Birdtail Creek, with its widely scattered
houses, its weathered church, its unused
school with shattered windows, has
the appearance of partial abandonment, despite
the fact that the population there has
increased from seventy-three in 1916 to 175
in 1964. Oak Lake, too, has its quota of
new houses and an attractive school building,
but the visitor is likely to be more impressed
by the number of employable
young men with nothing to do but race
their cars back and forth along the dusty
road that bisects the reserve.
Standing Buffalo and Moose Woods (now
officially called White Cap) give much the
same appearance. On both there are new
houses, attractive school buildings, old but
well-maintained churches. When the annual
^^ Interviews with H. A. Matthews, Superintendent,
File Hills-Qu'Appelle Agency, Fort Qu'Appelle,
Saskatchewan, August 12, 1966, and Wilham
Eagle, resident of the Moose Woods reserve, August
13, 1966; letter to the author from R. B. Kohls,
Superintendent, Duck Lake Agency, Duck Lake,
Saskatchewan, April 28, 1967.
^* Letter to the author from D.A.H. Nield, Superintendent,
Portage la Prairie Agency, May 8, 1967.
According to Mr. Nield, the people at Portage la
Prairie find employment as carpenters and as farm
laborers, in addition to that furnished by the Campbell
Soup Company of Canada plant adjacent to
the Sioux village.
powwow takes place at Standing Buffalo in
August, Indians from the other Sioux reserves
gather, along with members of other
tribes in western Canada and the northern
United States. For a few days the hills of
the Qu'Appelle Valley echo to the sound of
drums and the Indians perhaps forget their
economic plight. But behind the facade are
the grim facts. Poor like the other Sioux, the
people at Standing Buffalo are beset by factionalism—
the ravine versus the prairie
upland — and they are said to be more dependent
on the agency than other bands.
Cattle raising gives the people at Moose
Woods a somewhat better economic status,
and employment is available in Saskatoon
and at the Dundurn Army Base adjacent to
the reserve.^^
Dreariest of all is the Wahpaton Sioux reserve
near Prince Albert, the northernmost
point reached by the Sioux people.
There are no new houses here; scattered
over the reserve are log houses, many of
them unoccupied. Although some land is
cultivated, practically none of it is farmed
by the Indians themselves. Employment —
what there is — must be found in Prince
Albert. By contrast, the Indians living in
the Sioux village at Portage la Prairie have
work available across the street at a mushroom-
processing plant. Their community,
some of whose houses are quite new, gives
an appearance of neatness and order. Making
no attempt to farm, they have not been
affected by recent changes in agriculture.
Like their ancestors nearly a century ago,
they earn at least part of their living by
working for their white neighbors.^^
In their Indian policies Canada and the
United States have pursued divergent roads
toward the same objective: bringing the
Indian to a point of economic and social
A dirt street in
"Sioux WHinge" at
Portage In Prairie,
Manitoba
equality with the rest of the population, to
the end that he might participate fully
in the collective life of the nation. Neither
country has entirely succeeded. It is probably
fair to say that Canada has had fewer
obstacles to contend with. Settlement was
slower, and the typical settler was less
savagely anti-Indian in sentiment. Those
Indians with a basis for comparison have
noticed the difference. In 1914 Frederick H.
Abbott, secretary of the Board of Indian
Commissioners, visited the Standing Buffalo
reserve and asked the chief if his people
would like to return to the United
States. "No," was the reply, "we have
visited our friends in the United States
many times — we would not trade places
with them. We are getting along all right.
Our government treats us right." ^^ 'pjjjg ^^^
a bleak period in the history of American
Indian policy, and perhaps the chief would
have answered differently had he been
asked the same question in the 1930s and
early 1940s. And one must not discount the
natural feeling of loyalty to the country and
locality of one's birth. Yet Canadian Indian
pohcy has been on the whole more enlightened
than United States policy.
Canadian administration has been less subject
to the spoils system and to the vagaries
of economy-minded legislatures.^^
Despite these seeming advantages, Canadian
Indian pohcy has yielded, for the
Sioux, much the same results as American
Indian policy: an economically depressed
class, half assimilated, yet not fully accepted.
Their aboriginal culture modified
beyond recognition, the Sioux have not
wholly embraced the white man's culture.
The recipients of a dwindling number of
services not afforded the general population,
they seem in both countries as yet unprepared
to undertake their own support
unaided. The thought inevitably suggests
itself that, in the white man's campaign to
eliminate the features of the Indian heritage
that he deemed undesirable, he may
have vitiated in the Indian the qualities of
character necessary to success as an independent
citizen in a changing society.
*® Frederick H. Abbott, The Administration of
Indian Affairs in Canada, 22 (Washington, 1915).
^"The tenure of agents was generally longer
than in the United States. Markle, who succeeded
Herchmer at the Birtle Agency in 1886, remained
until 1901, and his successor, G. H. Wheatley,
stayed at least fifteen years. See 6 Parhament, 1 session,
Sessional Papers, no. 6, p. 121; 9 Parhament, 2
session, Sessional Papers, no. 27, p. 126; Department
of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1916, p. 48.
THE MODERN PHOTOGRAPHS used in this
article were taken by the author in August, 1966.
The picture of Standing Buffalo on page 16 is from
the Minnesota Historical Society picture collection;
that on page 24 is from the Gunn Collection, Manitoba
Archives.
Encampment on QuAppelle Lakes during August powwow at Standing Buffalo reserve
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