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The Lawless West Parliament Drawings
1840

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Canada's Parliament buildings are located in Ottawa, Ontario. The Province of Canada was first formed in 1841 and in 1857 Queen Victoria selected Ottawa as our Country's capital. The act to create a mounted police force was passed in the House of Commons, located at the west end of the Center Block.

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The Lawless West Parliament Buildings
1875
Ottawa, Ontario

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From an act, a mounted troop was organized and officers appointed for the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP).
Legal Authority: Act of Parliament (36Vic,ch25), May 23, 1873; Order in Council 1134, August 30, 1873.

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In the North-West Territories, during the summer of 1873, hostilities erupted between the natives, whiskey traders and visiting American wolfers. The result was the massacre of an entire Assiniboine village.

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The Lawless West Cypress Hills
1873
Cypress Hills

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At the close of trading season, unfair fur trading prices and stiff competition strained relations between the Indians and the traders. It was at this time that a group of lost American wolfers arrived in Cypress Hills looking for the Cree Indians who had stolen their horses in a raid some two weeks earlier.

Over the course of a few days while the wolfers, natives, and traders drank heavily and without care, another horse disappeared from camp.

Out of revenge, the wolfers surrounded and brutally attacked the unarmed village of Assiniboine men, women, and children in the early morning hours of June 1, 1873.

Even after the wandering pony was found, the wolfers continued to take prisoners, raped women and burned the remainder of the village. They marked their exit by displaying the head of the slain Assiniboine chief, Little Soldier, on a lodge pole at the perimeter of the village.