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Wood Mountain Centennial

By Delores Broten

  • 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.

Read more

  • Delores Broten
  • Issue 028
  • Poetry

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