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Battle of duck Lake
On March 26, 1885, the 150 to 200 Métis and Aboriginal warriors under the command of Gabriel Dumont defeated a combined group of 90 Prince Albert Volunteers and North-West Mounted Police led by their superintendent Leif Newry Fitzroy Crozier at Duck Lake, outside Batoche. -
Looting of Battleford
A Cree looting party, short of food due to deminishing bison populations, approached Battleford. The white inhabitants fled to the nearby Northwest Mounted Police post, Fort Battleford. The Crees then took food and supplies from the abandoned stores and houses. In an argument, an Indian Agent named Rae was shot and killed. -
Frog Lake Massacre
Near Frog Lake, Saskatchewan (now in Alberta) a Cree raiding party led by Wandering Spirit attacked a small town. Angered by what seemed to be unfair treaties and the withholding of vital provisions by the Canadian government,and also by the dwindling buffalo population, their main source of food, Big Bear and his Cree decided to rebel after the successful Métis victory at Duck Lake. They gathered all the white settlers in the area into the local church. They killed Thomas Quinn, the town's Indi -
Battle of Fort Pitt
200 Cree warriors descended on Fort Pitt. They intercepted a police scouting party, killing a constable, wounding another, and captured a third. Surrounded and outnumbered, garrison commander Francis Dickens (son of famed novelist Charles Dickens) capitulated and agreed to negotiate with the attackers. Big Bear released the remaining police officers but kept the townspeople as hostages and destroyed the fort. Six days later, Inspector Dickens and his men reached safety at Battleford. -
BAttle of Fish Creek
At Fish Creek, Saskatchewan, 200 Métis achieved a remarkable victory over a superior government force numbering 900 soldiers who were sent to quell the rebellion. The reversal, though not decisive enough to alter the outcome of the war, temporarily halted Major General Frederick Middleton's column's advance on Batoche. That was where the Métis would later make their final stand. -
Battle of Cut Knife
The Cree war chief Fine-Day defeated Lieutenant Colonel William Otter at the Battle of Cut Knife near Battleford. Despite their use of a Gatling gun, a flying column of Canadian militia and army regulars, government forces were defeated. Fine-Day was affiliated with the chief Poundmaker. -
Battle of Batoche
The Battle of Batoche was the decisive battle of the North-West Rebellion. Fought from 9 May to 12 May 1885 at the ad hoc Provisional Government of Saskatchewan capital of Batoche, the greater numbers and superior firepower of Middleton's force could not be successfully countered by the Métis (as had happened at Fish Creek), and the town was eventually captured. The defeat of the Métis led to the surrender of Louis Riel on 15 May and the collapse of the Provisional Government. -
Battle of Frechman's Butte
A band of Cree led by Chief Big Bear, living in what is now central Alberta and Saskatchewan joined the North-West Rebellion of 1885 after the Métis success at the Battle of Duck Lake. The starving band seized food and supplies from several white settlements and captured Fort Pitt, taking prisoners. Major-General Thomas Bland Strange, a retired British officer living near Calgary, raised a force of cowboys and other white settlers, added to them two units of North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), and
