Chief Little Pine’s dream realized centuries later

Little Pine’s people were starving and he was forced to make a decision.

As we move into the dog days of summer, I look back and reflect that July has been an event-filled month.

We just finished the North American Indigenous Games in Toronto, where my son Lorne and his team took home a silver medal in under-16 boys’ volleyball. He is a school counsellor and decided he wanted to coach a team at NAIG. The volleyball teams were looking for coaches, so he took on the under-16 team.

Unfortunately, he lives in Alberta so he coached the Alberta team. In round-robin play, they were only defeated by Saskatchewan. I was torn, because while my heart was with his team, my soul lay in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan got the gold and Alberta took home the silver.

When I say my soul lies in Saskatchewan,

I’m not being overly dramatic. I’m a member of the Little Pine First Nation and we have lived in Saskatchewan, or what would become Saskatchewan, for centuries. Our home was the Cypress Hills and we ranged out on the plains hunting buffalo and raiding and stealing horses. Our people would travel as far as the Bear Paw Mountains in what is now Montana. It was the southernmost range of the Plains Cree.

The 1860s and 1870s were a turbulent time for First Nations on the plains. It was a time of war, famine and disease, and the lives of First Nations people would be forever changed. The Blackfeet and the Cree were at war, fighting over territory and what was left of the buffalo hunting grounds. Tribes returning from the United States brought with them smallpox and other diseases, which had a devastating effect when combined with the lack of buffalo.

In 1872 the Cree and Blackfeet made a peace treaty which was followed by treaty negotiations with the Canadian government. In 1876 the Plains Cree signed Treaty Six and in 1877 the Blackfeet signed Treaty Seven.

The treaty signing wasn’t unanimous. Big Bear, Little Pine and several other chief held out for a better deal. But the government of John A. Macdonald was adamant there would be no more negotiations and the plains would be cleared for the railway and settlement. No assistance was given to those that refused to sign treaty.

In 1879, Little Pine’s people were starving and he was forced to make a decision. In the end he decided to sign the treaty. Meanwhile, in Big Bear’s camp, the same decision was debated.

Lucky Man, one of Big Bear’s headmen, wanted to sign the treaty; Big Bear continued to hold off for a better deal. Lucky Man split from Big Bear and took his supporters with him. Lucky Man wanted to do what was best for his people in the immediate future, while Big Bear was more visionary and saw what would be the case in the longer view. Both men had good points but they were irreconcilable.

Little Pine and Lucky Man signed Treaty Six at Fort Walsh and were forced to abandon the hills and move north to the Battle River. Big Bear continued to hunt and live in the Cypress Hills until the government forced him out and he, too, moved north.

Lucky Man refused to move north; instead, he travelled to the United States to Great Falls, where he died of disease among the growing diaspora of Canadian Cree and Assiniboine. His remaining band members moved north with Little Pine and it would be almost a century before they would receive recognition as an independent First Nation.

In 1992, Little Pine was recognized among 27 other First Nations as having outstanding treaty land entitlement. The chief and council convened a meeting of the elders to determine what kind of land we should purchase. Among their request was land of cultural importance. It took us a few years but we found some land in the Cypress Hills and we purchased it.

Today we have 10 quarter sections of land directly south of Fort Walsh. As a TLE trustee, it’s one of our greatest accomplishments to bring our First Nation full circle and return to the hills. Our plans include a culture camp for our youth or even a healing lodge sometime in the future. We plan to leave the land in a natural state and preserve it for future generations.

It’s the embodiment of Chief Little Pine’s dream to have land in the Cypress Hills.