Kitchi-manito-waya was arrested on this day in 1895 for butchering a government steer. While imprisoned, one of the arresting officers apparently told Kitchi-manito-waya in jest that the penalty for killing a government steer was hanging. Taking the joke seriously, Kitchi-manito-waya escaped from jail that night and fled home to One Arrow reserve. This was only ten years after the 1885 North-West Resistance, which his father Sinnookeesick had taken part in. His grandfather, chief Kapeyakwaskonam ("One Arrow"), was a signatory to Treaty 6 at Fort Carlton in 1876. Conditions were very tough for Indigenous peoples on the plain at that time, almost certainly leading to him needing to butcher the government steer. Following his escape from jail, on October 29th, North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) sergeant Colebrook tracked Kitchi-manito-waya down and he killed the sergeant during the attempted arrest. With the North-West Resistance fresh in their minds, police and Indian agents worried that Kitchi-manito-waya’s actions might encourage other Plains Cree to retaliate against colonial agents in an uprising. With a bounty on his head, Kitchi-manito-waya escaped capture throughout 1895 and 1896. On 27 May 1897, he and two relatives wounded a Métis scout near Duck Lake. The next day in another shootout, NWMP inspector Allan was seriously wounded and NWMP corporal C.H.S. Hockin, constable J.R. Kerr and Ernest Gundy, the Duck Lake postmaster, were all killed. It took a force of approximately 100 North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) officers and civilians to finally kill Kitchi-manito-waya on 30 May, 1897. We remember his unnecessary death today which illustrates not only the terrible conditions that Plains Cree and other indigenous peoples of the prairies endured at the time but their sometimes quiet and sometimes dramatic acts of resistance.

Louis Riel was a leader of the francophone Métis communities in Red River (now Winnipeg), Montana, and central Saskatchewan. In 1874, he described the Canadian Confederation as "a deceit". Although he had become an American citizen after exile from Red River, he was executed by the Canadian state in 1885 for his part in the resistance in what would become Saskatchewan. Today, Canadian politicians and official Métis organizations continue to cover-up and recuperate his legacy.