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Guide to Powwow Country: Drive the Trails of 1885 - Saskatchewan

Author

Windspeaker Staff

Volume

31

Issue

5

Year

2013

Drive the Trails of 1885

Why not get acquainted with the sites of the 1885 Northwest Resistance through a self-guided tour? These trails mark the significant events of the Northwest Resistance in 1885, a turbulent and formative time in Canadian history. There are three Trails of 1885 driving tours already planned out. A Drive through Battle River Country includes the Battlefords, Cut Knife and Poundmaker Cree Nation and covers 124 km. It is in the Battle River area where in 1885 hostilities broke out between the Cree and Canadian government forces. Another tour, A Drive through the Valleys of Saskatchewan, covers 260 km, traveling north from Saskatoon and to the areas North and South Saskatchewan rivers, the centre of Metis settlements and the site of the main battles between the Métis and government forces. This tour includes Battle of Tourond’s Coulee - Fish Creek National Historic Site, Batoche National Historic Site, St. Laurent Shrine (Our Lady of Lourdes), Duck Lake and Fort Carlton Provincial Park. The third tour, A Drive through the North West Frontier, is the longest at close to 400 km, and follows the stories of Chief Big Bear whose Cree people clashed with Canadian government forees, culminating in the last military engagement on Canadian soil. This tour has stops at Frog Lake National Historic Site, Fort Pitt Provincial Historic Park, Frenchmen Butte and Steele Narrows Historic Park. Historic sites on this driving itinerary do not have visitor centres. There are interpretive panels which tell the stories of those involved.