History
The North West Mountain Police were sent to the Wood Mountain area to establish the Queen's Law in the frontier west of early Canada. It was the 1870s, and Sitting Bull had led his large Sioux tribe away from The Little Big Horn after defeating Custer's incursion upon their native land. The Canadian government was concerned that the Sioux would cause problems, and charged Walsh of the NWMP with maintaining control of what amounted to Canada's first attempted peace keeping mission. Walsh succeeded, as he and Sitting Bull became close friends over the years, and there were never any serious problems caused by the American Indian settlers. Members of the tribe remain in the Wood Mountain area to this day, including several families who live on the Wood Mountain First Nation.
In 1890 the Wood Mountain Stampede was established, and it became an annual event held even through the World War years of 1914-1918 and 1939–1945, which has allowed it to attain the title of the longest-running annual rodeo in Canada. It is held each year, the second weekend in July.
Read more about this topic: Wood Mountain Regional Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is no history of how bad became better.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)