It's imprint on history was less than 30 years but Fort Battleford witnessed one of the bloodiest and most exciting battles in early Canadian history; The Battle of Cut Knife Hill. It combined all the elements of a classic conflict - starvation, siege, pursuit, a massacre narrowly averted, treason and hanging.

When Canada was created the West was Wild. The North West Mounted Police were created to bring law and order to the Prairies in 1873. Just three years later they built Fort Battleford at the junction of the Battle and North Saskatchewan rivers. It was the wintering place for a massive concentration of Cree and Blackfoot nations. Fort Battleford was named as the new capital of the North. But the fort's authority was soon challenged by Poundmaker's Cree, starving ever since they had been forced onto reserves by treaty 6 and the bison herds had been hunted to extinction.