Wherein Moominmama visits the Cypress Hills and the crucible that shaped the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...

Moominmama underestimated the surprise of the Cypress Hills, a unique feature of the Saskatchewan plains. 

I'd been warned Saskatchewan would be flat, so that came as no surprise. The vibrant green and gold colors did come as a surprise. Verdant grasslands, fields of wheat and sunny rapeseed, with ghostly hands brushing their surfaces in the wind. Giant rolls of blond hay and the multi-pronged machinery of modern farming lurching like pterodactyls along dirt roads. An enormous clear blue sky. Captivating -- and not at all boring as I'd been warned. 

But I assumed the highest peak of Saskatchewan would be more like the rumpled hills of South Dakota, not requiring a climb up switchbacks to hills of lodgepole pine.

I was headed to Fort Walsh, a place I'd read about in a book by Western writer Wallace Stegner, who spent part of his formative years in the area.

The Cypress Hills are a unique ecosystem called an "erosional plateau," basically an island in the plains left by glaciers that surrounded rather than flattened it. It provides a variety of habitats, with gullies and trees and bushes seen nowhere else on the plains. 

For indigenous people from multiple tribes, it was a place to collect timber for teepees or travois and pitch to repair canoes. It was a place to hunt smaller game than bison and a rare source of shade! On the day I visited, it was a full 10 degrees cooler than the plains below.

Fort Walsh was built here in 1875 by what was then a newly created North West Mounted Police, the precursor to the Canadian Mounties. The Fort has been preserved, and the photo above shows the bathhouse. 

Per Stegner, the new enforcers were red-coated from the start to differentiate them from the blue-clad American military, whose behavior toward native tribes the Canadians attempted to improve upon. With limited success.

The Cypress Hills are quite close to the Montana border. And when the whiskey trade was banned there, the whiskey makers found it convenient to move into this new and unguarded Canadian territory and, from there, ply their trade in both countries. In this, they joined the trappers, the traders, the mercenary wolf killers and plains Indians for whom the loss of the Buffalo was taking an increasing toll.

The Cypress Hills Massacre refers to the brutal slaughter of hundreds of Nakota people who'd come to the hills after near-starvation drove them from the north. They had set up tents not far from a trading post. An argument about a stolen horse combined with an excess of aforementioned whiskey led one of the wolfers to lead his compatriots in a charge against the Nakota families camped nearby.

The Nakota were mowed down by repeating rifles against which they had little recourse. When news of the lawlessness reached Ottawa, the need to bring order to the Wild West led to the dispatch of a group of men, led by James Morrow Walsh, who would bring law to the Cypress Hills, eventually winning the respect of the Nakota and other tribes. Then in 1881, Walsh was transferred -- largely because he was sympathetic to the Plains Indians.

This included Lakota Chief Sitting Bull and many of his people, who fled into the Cypress Hills after getting the best of General Custer. Then-Canadian Prime Minister John A. MacDonald wanted the offenders returned to the States, as U.S. authorities demanded.

Walsh did host a meeting at the Fort in 1877, allowing the Americans to meet with Lakota leaders in an effort to convince them to surrender and return. About the same time, a band of Nez Perce arrived in the Cypress Hills, fleeing from the American military. No surprise, the Lakota observed the violence against this tribe and discounted American promises.

But by 1881 -- note this is the same year Walsh is relieved of his post -- Canadian government decisions denying the Lakota access to resources because they weren't "Canadian" Indians left many of the Lakota families starving. 

Sitting Bull surrendered to U.S. authorities in July of 1881 in exchange for amnesty for his people. And once again, Moominmama finds it interesting to learn about history through the lens of another country. 

From Saskatchewan, Moominmama has traveled into the province of Manitoba, countryside that looks much more like the eastern woodlands -- and has lots of mosquitos. Riding Mountain National Park is far less "wild" than most national parks since the area has long served as a summer retreat. An Altoiste friend who grew up here pointed out the sights, including the still-active movie house, the local golf course and a location where a roller rink once stood. There are private family cabins, a big beach, lakeside walkways,  and an enormous lawn with a gazebo for musical performances. Everything is in walking distance.

After weeks spent hiking up stony summits, this is so civilized! My days now include reading in the shade, swimming in Clear Lake and the joys of an ice cream cone. This feels like vacation.