Fort Walsh National Historic Site, Maple Creek, Saskatchewan
Here, on June 1, 1873, American wolf hunters attacked a camp of the Nakoda First Nation, resulting in the massacre of Elders, warriors, women, and children. This hastened the dispatch of the North-West Mounted Police and led to one of the first major tests of Canada’s law enforcement policies in the West. Although the Mounties’ efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice were unsuccessful, they convinced First Nations of the impartiality of the Force and the government it represented. The memory of the massacre and of their fallen ancestors reinforces the connection between the Nakoda people and these lands they hold to be sacred.