Little known story of warrior's death told at Duck Lake

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The history books may have gotten the events surrounding the death of Cree warrior Ah-see-we-yin wrong, but Harry Michael is keeping his story safe.

The 84-year-old former chief of the Beardy's and Okemasis First Nation learned from his grandfather, J.B. Bighead, the story of how one of the first victims of the 1885 North West Rebellion was gunned down. He has passed it on to his son, Andy Michael.

Now the Canadian government is on the verge of recognizing the historical inaccuracies surrounding the rebellion, and both descendants of Ah-see-we-yin were there to see the first step on March 26 at the reserve just outside of Duck Lake, located 60 km southwest of Prince Albert.

A ceremony, exactly 114 years after his death, was held on the site of the confrontation between the North West Mounted Police and local volunteers and a force of Metis under Gabriel Dumont.

Ah-see-we-yin's life was commemorated by members of the band - including his descendants - and local, federal and provincial representatives as well as members of the RCMP.

There was a teepee-raising and a pipe ceremony before a procession of flags were raised. An honour song for Ah-see-we-yin was then performed by the Horse Lake Ramblers drum group.

The ceremony was held to honor an often forgotten band member who was slain while trying to make his way home between the two forces.

Subsequent accounts of the rebellion have painted Ah-see-we-yin as an emissary of the rebels, along with Isidore Dumont, who met with a government interpreter before the battle, popularly known as the Duck Lake massacre.

The first shots in the rebellion, and the first deaths, are often portrayed as accidental. But Andy Michael related the oral history he has learned of how Ah-see-we-yin was actually an old, nearly blind man, who was challenged by "Gentleman" Joe McKay as he tried to go home from the Duck Lake trading post with a horse laden with groceries.

When he wouldn't be turned aside from his path, he grappled with the heavily armed McKay, and was shot through the back with his own pistol, after McKay first shot Dumont in the head.

Ah-see-we-yin's death became a mistaken footnote in the historical record of the rebellion, but it prompted a further tragedy that affected the entire band, according to present-day members.

Jeff Mike, band councillor and one of the organizers of the event, said part of the purpose of the ceremony was to right the wrong that history has done to the First Nation.

"History has mis\represented the First Nation involvement in the events," he said. "Setting the record straight is what we want to do."

The Beardy's and Okemasis First Nation members were painted as participants in the rebellion on the side of the Metis after the battle. It suffered the wrath of the Canadian government as a result, Mike said.

Underscoring the mistakes of the past, a stone monument to the Duck Lake battle, only a few metres away from where the ceremony was held, features a Parks Canada plaque that lists Indians as combatants on the side of the Metis under Gabriel Dumont.

In fact, there was a small group of individuals from the local band involved with the Metis, said Andy Michael, himself a former chief of the band. But the band itself resolved to stay out of the rebellion, having signed Treaty 9 only six years before.

"This is sort of an accident of history that the battle took place at Beardy's," Michael said. "According to oral history, he (Chief Beardy) told his people this is not our fight. So this was an accident. Ah-see-we-yin was killed execution style."

Michael added history books have been very unkind to his people in the intervening years, saying they participated in the rebellion.

The repercussions of that belief would be felt by the band after Chief Beardy's death a few years later, he said. Ottawa didn't allow the band to elect another chief until 1936.

"We think it was because they thought we participated in the rebellion," Michael said.

The Indian agent at th time ruled the reserve like a fiefdom in the absence of a chief or council to oversee him, Michael said.

Ray Funk, former MP for Prince Albert-Churchill River and historical researcher working with the band, said the effect of that federal discrimination is still a sore spot with the band.

"Beardy's still feels the pain of the real licking they got from the federal government from supposedly playing a role in the battle," Funk said.

He added there is documented evidence of the band's refusal to join the rebellion, but the misperception continues to this day.

While band members worked to expose the popular mistakes of history by telling Ah-see-we-yin's story at the ceremony, more concrete changes are also on the way.

Parks Canada representative Betty Tyrchniewicz told the crowd of a new plaque soon to be created for the historical site of the battle on the reserve. A Winnipeg researcher is conferring with the band and other First Nation representatives on the language for a new plaque, she said.

It acknowledges that the Beardy's and Okemasis band was not a participant in the battle.

The memorial ceremony, held for the first time this year, will now become an annual event.

Mike invited representatives of the RCMP and the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan to participate in future ceremonies with memorials to their own dead from the battle.

The Beardy's and Okemasis First Nation near Duck Lake is taking steps to make sure it doesn't get left out of the growth of Aboriginal tourism in Saskatchewan.

Due to its position along the old Carlton Trail between the South and North Saskatchewan Rivers, the reserve was the site of the first battle of the 1885 North West Rebellion.

While that event is an unhappy one for the band because it lost a member to the first shots fired and because it was persecuted for years after on the suspicion it participated in the rebellion, there are enormous opportunities because of it.

Consultant Ray Funk said there are plans to develop the site whee the first shots were fired, and where Cree warrior Ah-see-we-yin was killed.

"Given the history here, tourism is a very attractive thing to develop," Funk said. "I think there is an international market. This really is the heart of old Saskatchewan."

Standing on the site, which is currently a protected historic site, one is able to point to the depression where Metis rebels hid waiting for government forces to come up the trail. One can also see an old spruce tree, which is recognizable from photographs of the day, under which stood the log cabin the Metis occupied and where Ah-see-we-yin died.

The band's plans include redeveloping as much of the old Carlton Trail as possible, working with nearby Fort Carlton to build washroom and teepee camping facilities and constructing a walking trail through the reserve linking the various sites of interest.

Funk has been working with band councillor Jeff Mike and Elder Richard Ananas on the economic development committee.

Fund-raising efforts are ongoing by the band's Willow Cree Economic Development Inc., and an application for $250,000 to develop the sites has been submitted to the Western Economic Partnership Agreement.

"It's been very much a community driven enterprise," Funk said. "The young leaders are very enthusiastic and the Elders have welcomed it with open arms."

The band would also like to develop an eco-tourism trail on the reserve to take advantage of original parkland vegetation available and the bird watching by the lake.