The Cypress Hills: An Island by Itself

"A warm place in the north that is an island by itself" is how the Nakoda people described the Cypress Hills.

With an abundance of buffalo, other game, and lodge pole pine, the hills, straddling the Alberta/Saskatchewan/United States border, were a natural gathering point for First Nations and Métis peoples. Their presence drew the Hudson Bay Company and American free traders, whiskey traders, and wolfers. The presence of the latter two groups led to a clash of cultures culminating in the 1873 Cypress Hills massacre, an armed ambush of a Nakoda camp by a group of drunken wolfers and whiskey traders, killing men, women, and children. This event brought the Northwest Mounted Police to maintain peace in the west, and led to the creation of Fort Walsh, today a national historic site. And it was to Wood Mountain, just east of the Hills, that Sitting Bull and his followers fled after defeating Lt. Col. Custer in the Battle of Little Big Horn.

History is not static. Building on the success of their earlier work, The Cypress Hills: The Land and its People, authors Walter Hildebrandt and Brian Hubner revisit the hills and bring new and updated material to this book. While portions remain the same as the original book, new information about the Nakoda peoples and the Métis, as well as modern revelations, are added plus 19 additional photographs and images.