Prairie fire

de Bob Beal

This book tells us about the Métis, who simply wanted the long-standing boundaries of their river-lot farms respected by the government as Ottawa divided up the land to sell it to homesteaders. It tells about the Indians, whose land had been sold by the government and tradition of self-support destroyed, and who were now literally starving while the government broke its promises or tried to tie them to concessions. It tells us about local government officials, who could not agree among themselves whether the Indians should be treated with discipline or with food. It tells us about the frightened settlers and townspeople, caught between the Indians and the Métis they often sympathized with and the government they looked to for support. And it tells about the soldiers, who heroically set out to quell a rebellion, but whose greatest ordeal was the long train journey, on which they were beset by freezing cold and extreme shortages of food.