Midweek More Holiday Pictures

 While the first part of our trip looks fairly flat, by the time we reached Shaunavon the topography began to change. More rolling hills, valleys, and steep benches of land. We were entering ranch country rather than farming and the homes were so much further apart. Rolling hills are not the best to try and plant wheat, canola, or any other crop on. 

The first day we decided to travel to Fort Walsh. It had rained heavily before we arrived on Friday and the road directly through the park is not able to be used when wet. 

This meant we had to travel up to Maple Creek and across back into the park. Fort Walsh is a National Historic Site. The fort served as the headquarters of the North West Mounted Police from 1878 to 1882. Before then it was just an outpost.

The fort played a role in imposing Canadian law from 1875 to 1883, in implementing Canada's Indian policy and supervising the Lakota who fled to Canada with Tatanka Iyitanka (Sitting Bull) after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 

While most of what was in the fort was destroyed, there were lots of photos and the government and friends rebuilt many of the buildings using the foundations of the old.

In 1873, the Cypress Hills Massacre took place. Wolf hunters on the trail of stolen horses attacked a camp of Nakoda which resulted in the massacre of elders, warriers, women and children. This event prompted the Canadian government to send law enforcement as soon as possible. 

The Mounties' efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice convinced the First Nations of the impartiality of the force and the government. The memory of the massacre makes the Cypress hills sacred to the Nakoda. 

First we visited the visitor center to get an idea of what life was like at that time. 

We then made the trek down to the fort, first passing the NWMP cemetary.

Heading down the hill to the fort.

This was our first stop. This small building was where the commander lived and did his daily tasks. I was surprised that Commander Walsh's wife never did live there for any length of time. She came to visit once.

This was the commander's bedroom. The bed is really very short, which is something you can't tell in this picture.

There were lots of furs on the wall. This one was a Cypress Hill's Grizzley. They are no longer found in the hills due to over hunting.

A replica of the trunk that was found on site that could have been what the commander transported his personal items.

The commanders personal kitchen. He did not eat with the enlisted men.

The guardhouse. We got to check out the jail cells inside and learned a little bit about how the NWMP meted out justice. Since the First Nations people did not understand white laws their terms of service were much lower than those who were not First Nations. Say a young First Nations person stole a horse (for coup) they might get a month of hard labour, where as if another settler did the same thing, they could and did, usually get 2 years of hard labour. 

Because Canada was still a British colony the fort flew the Union Jack.

More pictures of the fort to come tomorrow. I don't want to bore you all. 

In this picture of the flag you can get a bit of an idea of how hilly this area of Saskatchewan is. 

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.