Fort Battleford employees dressed as North-West Mounted Police officers fire a cannon at the National Historic site of Canada located in Battleford, Sask. Established in 1876, the fort assisted in negotiations between government and first nations and a refuge for area residents during the North-West Rebellion/Resistance of 1885.Geoff Howe/The Canadian Press
They call it the Siege of Fort Battleford, one of the best-known events of the Northwest Rebellion, and Parks Canada will re-enact it again this weekend from the point of view of the terrified settlers within the fort's palisades.
But this year, the rebellion's 125th anniversary, at least one aboriginal historian has had enough.
Tyrone Tootoosis points out there was no siege, just hungry and desperate people come to ask for help, and he's tired of Parks Canada posters that present the encounter as an armed struggle.
"Our elders call this the white man's truth," says Mr. Tootoosis, a member of the Poundmaker band, curator of the Wanuskewin cultural park in Saskatoon and performer who calls himself a story-keeper.
"Our people went [to the fort]because they were hungry. They were starving."
In the spring of 1885, what eventually became Saskatchewan was in turmoil as Métis and some Cree led by Louis Riel fought back against what they saw as settler encroachment on their lands. By the end of March, whites had already been killed at Duck Lake and Frog Lake and rumours were spreading like a prairie fire that Cree from Chief Poundmaker's band were massing to join the revolt.
Terrified, hundreds of people from the town of Battleford poured into the North West Mounted Police fort. Civilians were armed to add to the detachment of 25 Mounties and the fort's stockade was beefed up for the attack settlers were sure was coming.
On March 30, the Cree came. But no attack followed.
Chief Poundmaker asked to meet with the Indian Agent, but his request was denied. For the next three weeks, 500 settlers and townspeople cowered inside the tiny fort while some Cree roamed the town, looting and burning several homes and emptying the Hudson's Bay depot.
Occasional shots were fired. A policeman was killed.
But the fort was never attacked or surrounded, nor was its surrender demanded. During the "siege," scouts from the fort often couldn't find any Cree for dozens of kilometres around.
In fact, Chief Poundmaker was there to ask for the supplies promised his people and to reassure the Mounties that he had no plans to join Riel.
So why, asks Mr. Tootoosis, does Parks Canada advertise its annual re-enactment with posters proclaiming "Siege of Battleford," complete with pictures of soldiers aiming rifles and cannons and blurbs reading: "Follow townsfolk and settlers as they seek shelter in the Mounted Police fort to wait out the Siege of Battleford"?
"If there was no siege at Fort Battleford, what are they doing?"
Scott Whiting, director of Fort Battleford National Historic Site, agrees that "siege" doesn't really describe what happened. But he says that's not how it felt to the isolated settlers of Battleford.
"There was a siege mentality. That's what we're representing."
First-hand accounts of the time are abundant. Many settlers kept diaries and one of the West's first newspaper reporters, P.G. Laurie, filed regular dispatches for The Saskatchewan Herald from inside the stockade.
During Saturday's re-enactment, 15 vignettes taken from those settler accounts will be acted out in an attempt to convey something of their isolation and fear. At the same time, tour guides will give visitors the full perspective unavailable to people at the time.
"One of the things we try to do is portray multiple perspectives on history," Mr. Whiting says.
Settlers didn't know anything about Chief Poundmaker's intentions, he adds. In an age of difficult communications, all they knew was that area aboriginals had killed whites and a large party of Cree were massing nearby.
"They thought they were in grave danger," Mr. Whiting says. "It's a very confusing time for everyone involved."
Mr. Whiting insists that the tour guides will leave nobody in doubt about what really happened. He also points out that, for the first time, a party from the nearby Poundmaker band will set up a camp near the fort, although they're not part of the re-enactment.
Mr. Tootoosis says the audience for the re-enactment may get the whole story, but the people who just see the poster may be left with the impression of a Hollywood-style shoot-'em-up.
"It doesn't indicate on the poster the siege was in the minds of the settlers," he says. "They need to indicate that."
Mr. Whiting does acknowledge the "siege" of Battleford is widely misunderstood.
"It's a story that's not been well told over the years and perhaps it hasn't always been fairly told."