Image 1: Louis Riel in 1878, after fighting for Métis rights during the 1870 Resistance.
Image 2: Riel’s wife Marguerite died of pneumonia following years of suffering from tuberculosis, in 1886.
Image 3: Riel’s children, Jean-Louis and Marie-Angelique. Marie-Angelique died of diphtheria in 1878. Jean-Louis died in 1908 after a buggy accident.
Image 4: After the 1870 Resistance, many Métis moved from Manitoba to Saskatchewan, in hope of a better life.
Image 5: Métis fiddle music has a sound all its own. The “Red River Jig” is uniquely Métis.
Image 6: When the buffalo roamed the plains, the buffalo hunt was a yearly event for the Métis and for many First Nations people.
Image 7: Gabriel Dumont, one of the Métis’ most experienced buffalo hunters, rode to Montana to ask Louis Riel to help the Saskatchewan Métis gain title to their land.
Image 8: Cree traders during negotiations at Fort Pitt. Some of the First Nations bands sided with Riel, Dumont and the Métis. Others did not wish to fight.
Image 9: The Métis forces met those of General Middleton for the first time at the Battle of Fish Creek.
Image 10: General Middleton’s soldiers used a Gatling gun to fire high-velocity bullets at the Métis fighters. The Gatling gun’s firepower was too much for even the Métis crack shots.
Image 11: The Battle of Batoche begins.
Image 12: Major-General Middleton’s soldiers were ordered to quell the Métis uprising in the Batoche area, after the telegraph lines at Clark’s Crossing were cut.
Image 13: This sketch of the steamship Northcote, under fire from Métis fighters, appeared in the Illustrated War News on May 9, 1885.
Image 14: At upper right, General Middleton; at bottom, a Métis home being hit by shells. Most of the homes in and around Batoche were burned by the army.
Image 15: Soldiers advance on dug-in Métis fighters.
Image 16: After three days of fighting, Middleton’s forces finally captured Batoche.
Image 17: Cree Chief Poundmaker was imprisoned after the Resistance. He died soon after being released from Stony Mountain Prison.
Image 18: Nine of the Métis who fought and died in the Resistance are buried in a mass grave in the cemetery at Batoche.
Image 19: Canada in 1885. The Canadian Pacific Railroad was completed late that year.
Image 20: The area involved in the 1885 Northwest Resistance.