Treaty medal restored

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On a hot August day in 1951, a young boy's act led to the disappearance of a treaty medallion. The medal stayed in the hands of strangers for 43 years, only to return through the actions of a bereaved widow.

The missing medal, a heavy, saucer-sized silver disc, had been presented to Chief Ahtahkakoop on signing Treaty Six in 1876. The medal bears a portrait of the Queen on one side and images of the chief and treaty commissioner on the other.

Hereditary chiefs of the Starblanket family passed the medal down father to son. One day a child, left alone by his brothers to play, was approached by two men asking for Indian artifacts to buy. He ran to get the medal and they gave him $2. Local myth had it that the misappropriated item brought bad luck to all who possessed it.

Forty years later, a woman in Saskatchewan heard the story of the medal. The woman, who does not want to be identified, realized her husband had bought the disc as a collector's item several years ago. He later died in an accident.

The medal was returned to Chief Barry Ahanakew, of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, in August. Hereditary chief, Allen Starblanket, great-grandson of Ahtahkakoop, now holds the medal, identified as the nation's, by the actions of another child who scratched his initial on the back of the disc.