The Cypress Hills: The Land and Its People

Michael Payne is head of the reasearch and publications program,
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and
co-author of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

This local history differs from the familiar community history (which
assumes history is about progress) and settler myths (with little or no
mention of aboriginal peoples) in that it neatly turns these conventions
on their heads. The authors’ interest in the Cypress Hills stems from
their work for Fort Walsh National Historic Site and a desire to ensure
that the history depicted there included the Native groups who lived in
the area—in some cases for thousands of years. As a result, ranching
and farming after 1880 merit but a page or two, and the development of
Cypress Hills Provincial Park is scarcely noted. Similarly, the authors
see the history of the area not as a linear progression toward some
preordained end but as cyclical and rooted in the land and its
resources, especially buffalo and lodgepole pine.

The book covers a number of topics, including archaeology, the fur and
buffalo-robe trades, the whisky trade, the Cypress Hills Massacre, the
arrival of the North West Mounted Police, treaty making, and reserve
selection. In particular, the book describes how government policies
actively discouraged the creation of reserves in the Cypress Hills,
despite the wishes of leaders like Big Bear and Nekaneet. It is not a
story from which Canadians can draw much pride.

Overall, the authors try to find some middle ground between popular and
academic history. The experiment may not please everyone, but the book
serves as an excellent introduction for the general reader to many of
the issues in the history of the First Nations of the Canadian Plains.