Background
A band of Cree led by Chief Big Bear, living in what is now central Alberta and Saskatchewan joined the North-West Rebellion of 1885 after the Métis success at the Battle of Duck Lake. The starving band seized food and supplies from several white settlements and captured Fort Pitt, taking prisoners. Major-General Thomas Bland Strange, a retired British officer living near Calgary, raised a force of cowboys and other white settlers, added to them two units of North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), and headed north. He was reinforced by three infantry units from the east, bringing his forces to some 1,000 men. While he left some of his force to provide protection for the isolated white settlements in the area, he led several hundred troops east to Fort Pitt. The Cree burnt the fort ahead of him and retreated to the nearby hills. Over the next few days, Strange's scouts fought skirmishes with small groups of Cree and marched over Frenchman's Butte. On the night of May 27, the Cree dug in at the top of a hill east of the Butte and waited.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Frenchman's Butte
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