Montana band sues feds for loss of reserve 80 years ago

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The Montana Band from Hobbema is suing the federal government for compensation for the loss of much of its reserve 80 years ago.

Twenty square miles were taken by Ottawa from the band in 1909 by Ottawa and sold to settlers in future years, leaving the band with just 10 square miles, claims the band.

"They came along and ate off two-thirds," said band lawyer Gary Nelson, in an interview from his Vancouver office.

Nelson said if the courts rule in favor of the Hobbema band, it will have to decide how much should be awarded.

He said he had "no idea" how much the compensation might amount to if the band's claim is successful.

The dispute centres around the surrender of land to the government by former members of the Bobtail Band.

The government at the time approached those members to surrender the land after Montana Band members "completely refused," said Nelson.

"The government decided the Montana Band wasn't the proper ones from whom to take a surrender--even though they had taken a surrender from them eight years earlier--and they determined the proper people were remnants of the Bobtail Band," said Nelson.

"They went through this charade of taking a surrender of the reserve from this group," said Nelson. "They took the surrender from the wrong group and did the Montana Band out of its land."

The Montana Band isn't challenging its surrender of land in 1901 to the Crown for the Calgary-Edmonton railway.

The government paid a considerable amount of money to the former Bobtail members for the land surrendered in 1909, which left the Montana Band with just 10 square miles.

The area was originally set aside in the late 1800s for a band headed by Chief Bobtail. But the band didn't stick together too long; members dispersed or joined other bands around 1890. The chief and some of his followers then took scrip while others joined the Samson and Ermineskin Bands adjacent to the Bobtail Band.

In 1896 a group of refugee Indians took advantage of an amnesty and returned from Montana--where they had fled after the 1885 rebellion--to establish the Montana Reserve settling on land which had been earlier set aside for Chief Bobtail and his band.

Nelson hopes the case will be heard this fall at the Federal Court of Canada in Edmonton and predicted the trial will last five days.