Frog Lake National Historic Site of Canada

National Historic Site is the location of the Frog Lake Cree uprising during the Northwest Resistance. On April 2, 1885 a group of Cree warriors led by War Chief Wandering Spirit from Chief Big Bear’s Band attacked the small settlement near Frog Lake. Many of Big Bear’s people were close to starvation and desperately in need of food. Attempts to obtain food failed so Wandering Spirit tried to seize the community’s residents as hostages in a bid to negotiate a better deal with the government.  The effort failed, violence broke out and nine of the male residents were murdered. The site features settler’s graves, stone monument, and descriptive walking trail. There are also archaeological remains of a cemetery, and depressions in the earth representing the church, the mill, the milk house, stables… remnants of old wagon trails still exist.

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