Wood Mountain Centennial
- The national historic site
- seemed deserted when we drove in,
- looking for a lunchtime oasis
- among the hot and dusty
- south Saskatchewan hills.
- Grass poked through the pavement
- in the parking lot.
- The trim white barracks were locked.
- Up the road at Indian Reserve 160,
- we could hear children playing
- around the Chevrolets and Pontiacs
- which would never run again.
- Here Commissioner James Morrow Walsh
- and seven North West Mounted Police
- met Sitting Bull
- and six thousand victorious Sioux
- seeking refuge after Little Big Horn.
- While buffalo bones were stockpiled
- along the railroad tracks,
- and the government cut costs
- by cutting rations,
- the two men became,
- by all accounts, good friends.
- MacDonald was enraged.
- He transferred Walsh, demoted him,
- had him busted from the Force,
- broke his promises.
- In 1881 the Sioux were starved back
- to American reservations to die.
- In the wind-blown grass
- at the national historic site,
- beside the locked white buildings,
- a plain canvas teepee stands, empty.
- The open door-flap is signed,
- Made by Standing Buffalo,
- Dakota Sioux, 1981.
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