The following is an article which I originally published on my personal website in 2014.
“Medicine Hat? What a weird name!”
This remark, or some variation thereof, is usually one of the first things I hear after I mention ‘Medicine Hat’ to somebody who’s never heard of it before.
“…To my mind, the name of Medicine Hat has an advantage over (other cities with similarly unique names). It echoes as you so justly put it the old Cree and Blackfoot tradition of red mystery and romance that once filled the prairie… Believe me, the very name is an asset, and as years go on will become more and more of an asset. It has no duplicate in the world; it makes men ask questions, and as I knew, more than twenty years ago, draws the feet of the young men towards it; it has the qualities of uniqueness, individuality, assertion and power.
Above all, it is the lawful, original, sweat-and-dust-won name of the city and to change it would be to risk the luck of the city to disgust and dishearten old-timers, not in the city alone, but the world over…
… (A man’s city) is the living background of his life and love and toil and hope and sorrow and joy. Her success is his success; her shame is his shame’ her honour is his honour; and her good name is his good name.”
Kipling concluded with, “What then should a city be rechristened that has sold its name? Judasville.”
Perhaps due in part to Kipling’s letter (which was printed on the front page of the Medicine Hat News), the town decided, in a ten-to-one vote, to keep the old name, which it bears to this day.
So how did Medicine Hat come by such a provocative and controversial name? As it turns out, there is no clear answer. On the contrary, there are a number of different (and conflicting) explanations for how Medicine Hat came to be called what it is. Most of these explanations claim that the name ‘Medicine Hat’ is based on either:
1) A battle between the Blackfoot and Cree;
2) A native legend involving love and human sacrifice;
3) A landmark that looks like an Indian’s headdress.
In spite of their differences, every single explanation has something in common, namely the inclusion of a medicine man’s headdress, or a ‘medicine hat’ (saamis, in Blackfoot (Siksika)). Below are the 17 most common explanations for how Medicine Hat got its name.
A number of different Indian legends claim that Medicine Hat received its name from an incident that occurred during a battle between the Blackfoot and the Cree. Some of these legends are described below.
The earliest recorded battle legend about Medicine Hat’s naming was published in Regina’s, Leader Post, on July 5, 1883. This story places the battle on the shores of ‘Bitter Lake’, the Indian name for some mysterious body of water. It is interesting to note that there is a ‘Bitter Lake’ that lies less than 60 km east of Medicine Hat, just across the Saskatchewan border slightly east of Many Island Lake.
Many years ago, the Blackfoot and the Iron Confederacy (Cree and Assiniboine Sioux) fought a battle on the shores of “what is known among the Indians as ‘Bitter Lake’”. During the heat of battle, the Assiniboine medicine man lost his hat. After the battle was over (a Blackfoot victory), the medicine man and a handful of braves returned to the battlefield to search for the lost hat. Although they searched until sunset, they found no sign of the hat. At dusk, just as the warriors were preparing to abandon their search, an enormous, shadowy figure emerged in the middle of Bitter Lake. The figure, which appeared to be a man standing on the water’s surface, held the medicine man’s hat in his outstretched hand. The warriors watched in horror as the figure, along with their medicine man’s beloved hat, disappeared beneath the waves.
Many prairie frontiersmen affirmed that Medicine Hat was so named because of the vision of a medicine man. Their early accounts are summarized in an article that appeared on the front page of the Medicine Hat Times on November 12, 1885.
The Cree, who drank from the spring, were unaware that they were being watched by a war party of Blackfoot. The Blackfoot warriors, who had been spying on the Cree from atop present-day Crescent Heights, waited until their enemies had quenched their thirst before screaming their war whoops and charging down the hill towards them. Frantically, the Cree leapt onto their horses and thundered east towards the ford they had just crossed.
When the Cree crossed the ford and reached the northern shore of Strathcona Island, they stood their ground and showered upon their pursuers a volley of arrows. The Blackfoot medicine man, who rode at the head of the warriors, was shot in the heart by one of the first arrows. In his death throes, the medicine man reared up on his stallion, and as he did so his feathered war bonnet was blown off by the wind. The medicine man’s hat fell into the river and floated against the shores of Strathcona Island.
The remaining Blackfoot warriors watched in horror as their medicine man’s headdress was picked up by the Cree. Imagining that the Great Spirit had forsaken them, they fled back across the river to Police Point.
Later, the Blackfoot returned to the spot and built a stone cairn on the north shore of the river, on the banks of present-day Police Point, in remembrance of the event. Although the cairn has since been scattered into oblivion by Medicine Hat’s many floods, the Indian name for the location, ‘The Place of the Medicine Hat’, remains to this day.
Reverend James William Morrow, a minister of Medicine Hat’s St. John’s Presbyterian Church from 1896-1918, described a different battle ostensibly responsible for the city’s name in his 1923 book, Early History of the Medicine Hat Country. This version, which bears some resemblance to Gillett’s Cree battle version, is echoed almost exactly in Edna Baker’s 1934 book, Prairie Place Names.
“Many years before the coming of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police” (before 1874), a band of Crees were camped in Medicine Hat’s present day Riverside district, as “good water was very easily obtained from the springs on the hillside”.
Blackfoot scouts spotted the Cree camp and attacked the next morning. Although caught unawares, the Cree managed to rally quickly and put up a fierce fight. In spite of their efforts, however, the Cree were slowly driven east towards Police Point. A number of Cree braves struggled to hold back the Blackfoot just long enough to allow their squaws, ponies and remaining warriors to cross the river into Strathcona Island.
While the Cree medicine man was crossing the river (in Baker’s version, he was fleeing with the women), a gust of wind blew his hat off his head and tossed it into the South Saskatchewan. The Cree warriors that had already crossed the river saw this, and perceived it to be a bad omen. Immediately, they lost all confidence and fled northeast. The victorious Blackfoot pursued the fleeing Cree as far as Many Island Lake. From that point on, the ford at which the incident occurred has been known as “the place-where-the-medicine-man-lost-his-hat”.
Another version of the battle legend, which is arguably the version most frequently affirmed by Hatters and (inarguably) one of the two versions officially espoused by the city, is an old local story which was eventually printed in the Medicine Hat News. Today, this version is printed on postcards entitled, The Day the Medicine Man Lost His Hat, which are freely distributed at Medicine Hat’s City Hall.
There was once a great battle between the Blackfoot and Cree that took place on the shores of the South Saskatchewan River (some place the battlefield near present day Finlay Bridge). Although the belligerents were roughly equal in strength, it appeared that the Cree had the upper hand. In the midst of battle, the Cree medicine man, fearing for his life, deserted his kinsmen and swam across the river. In his haste, he lost his headdress midstream to an undercurrent. The Cree braves, upon witnessing the cowardice of their shaman, proclaimed the disappearance of his headdress to be a bad omen and subsequently broke and fled. The Cree warriors, who at first appeared to be winning the battle, were completely routed by the Blackfoot.
James Henry Horner, one of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s first road masters stationed in Medicine Hat, heard an explanation for Medicine Hat’s name from an old Indian guide. He passed this story down to his son, David Edson Horner, who in turn told it to Marcel M.C. Dirk, a Medicine Hat resident, writer and historian. Dirk recorded this version in his 1993 book But Names Will Never Hurt Me.
This legend is notable in that it involves both a battle between the Blackfoot and Cree and human sacrifice.
Shortly after the battle, a Blackfoot warrior rode down to the river and prayed that he might one day become the most powerful medicine man in his tribe. While he was praying, he came upon a serpent who told him that his prayers would be answered if he gave the serpent the youngest of his three wives.
The warrior sacrificed his youngest wife to the serpent. Appeased, the serpent instructed the warrior to locate and dig under a large cottonwood tree that grew in a deep ravine in which a spring flowed. The warrior found the tree (at a location that is up present day Parkview Drive east of Maple Avenue), dug at its base and found a plumed medicine hat. Aided by the power of the hat, the warrior went on to become the most powerful medicine man of the Blackfoot tribe and came to be known as “The Man of the Medicine Hat”.
One old story passed down through the years by word of mouth is that, many years ago, an Indian war party massacred a group of white settlers. The Indian medicine man among them scavenged the white corpses and took either a young girl’s frilly bonnet or a man’s beaver felt top hat.
James Francis Sanderson, a half breed frontiersman and businessman, documented a Kainai Blackfoot version of how Medicine Hat got its name in his 1894 book Indian Tales of the Canadian Prairies. The same story was retold by Reverend Charles Stephens of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in a Medicine Hat News article, and is now one of the two official explanations for the origin of the city’s name.
Jim Marshall, a Medicine Hat artist and sculptor, immortalized this Blood legend in an enormous brick mural that graces the foyer to the Council Chambers in Medicine Hat’s City Hall.
There is a part of the South Saskatchewan River between Police Point Park and Strathcona Island Park that remains free of ice all year round, even during the most severe winters. The Blackfoot believed that this place was the breathing hole of the Great Spirit.
Far back in Blackfoot tradition, it is told that a young Blood hunter was tasked with scouting for buffalo during a particularly severe winter. The hunter, accompanied by his newly married wife and his favorite dog, journeyed down the frozen South Saskatchewan River. After several days of travelling, the trio arrived at the aforementioned part of the river on which ice never forms and made camp on the riverbank.
That evening, the hunter walked alone alongside the river. As he walked, the Great Spirit, in the form of an enormous serpent, slithered from the water. The serpent told the hunter that he would become great chief and medicine man if he threw the body of his wife into the river.
The hunter returned to his wife and told her what the Great Spirit had said. The wife immediately expressed her willingness to die for her husband and for the good of the tribe. Of course, the hunter was reluctant to sacrifice his wife, and so he sacrificed his favorite dog instead and prayed that its carcass might serve as a substitute. Upon throwing the body of his dog into the river, however, the serpent emerged again and told him that unless his wife was sacrificed, he could do nothing.
Again, the hunter returned to his wife and told her what the serpent had said. Again, his wife selflessly acquiesced. Finally, with great reluctance, the hunter sacrificed his wife and gave her body to the serpent.
In 1905, J.P. Turner, an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Historical Research Department, “made inquiries bearing on the origin of the unusual name (of Medicine Hat)”. Turner heard many versions regarding the subject from old Indians and white pioneers from both Fort Macleod and Medicine Hat, and wrote down the version “that appeared most authentic and vouched for” by his interviewees.
Senator Dr. Fredrick William Gershaw, an early Medicine Hat resident, physician, politician and amateur historian (who is the namesake of Medicine Hat’s Gershaw Drive and Bow Island’s Senator Gershaw School), included Turner’s story (which is remarkably similar to Sanderson’s Blood Version) in his book Saamis: The Medicine Hat.
W.H. McKay and James Sallows, Cree half breeds and pioneers who contested Gillett’s Cree battle legend, believed that Medicine Hat was named by William Cornelius Van Horne (General Manager and later President of the Canadian Pacific Railway) after listening to the account of a noted Cree chief named Thunder Bear. According to McKay, a middle aged Thunder Bear met with Van Horne at his uncle’s cabin in the spring of 1883 and told him a personal anecdote. Upon hearing the Indian’s tale, Van Horne supposedly decided to name the new village on the South Saskatchewan ‘Medicine Hat’.
This account was documented by Marcel M.C. Dirk, a Hatter historian, in his book But Names Will Never Hurt Me, by Senator Dr. Frederic William Gershaw, a Medicine Hat physician and politician, in his book Saamis: The Medicine Hat, and by Ed Gould, in his book All Hell for a Basement. In Gershaw’s version, the Cree narrator is named chief Thunder Bird (instead of Thunder Bear).
In the summer of 1862, chief Red Deer (the Cree chief who is the namesake of Red Deer, Alberta) “was camped with his tribe where the river that bears his name joins the swift flowing water” (near Empress). In one of Red Deer’s teepees lived a beautiful girl named Silver Rose. The old chief, who already had four older wives, had forced the girl to marry him against her will.
Silver Rose knew that Red Deer had a love of display and a weakness for showy feathers, and so she instructed Thunder Bird to shoot down a number of eagles that were nesting in the cut banks overlooking the river. Using the finest tail feathers from seven of the best eagles, Silver Rose made “one of the most beautiful bonnets any chief ever possessed”.
Thunder Bear and Silver Rose returned to Red Deer’s camp and presented the headdress to the old chief as a peace offering. The chief was so pleased with the gift that he forgave them both, and allowed them to remain together and live in his camp. The Cree people, being very superstitious, believed that Red Deer’s change of heart was attributable to the magic the medicine hat possessed.
Upon hearing Thunder Bear’s tale, Van Horne immediately decided to name the site of the new railway station ‘Medicine Hat’.
Many years ago, before the coming of the white man, a great chief named Kinosota ruled a band of Cree. Under Kinosota’s command was a wise, ambitious young brave named Kausketo’opot. In spite of his youth, Kausketo’opot was a veteran of many battles and was to be the successor of the old chief in the event of his death. Kausketo’opot had two wives. The first, whom his father insisted he marry at a young age, did not arouse his interest. The second, a girl named Wapasoos who was the daughter of the great chief Kinosota, was the love of his life. Shortly after he married Wapasoos, war was declared on the Blackfoot, and Kausketo’opot had to leave his teepee in order to lead his warriors against the enemy.
After many days of riding through the freezing prairie, the band arrived at present day Medicine Hat and made camp by the river, at the site on which the North West Mounted Police would later build their barracks (now marked by a sign in Police Point Park). Kausketo’opot rode downriver a short ways and came to the part of the South Saskatchewan River that remains free of ice all year round (between Police Point and Strathcona Island). According to Indian tradition, that stretch of the river was the breathing place of the Great Spirit. Kausketo’opot led his horse over to the water to drink. As the horse quenched its thirst, the Great Spirit, in the form of an enormous serpent, rose up from the icy water. The serpent spoke to Kausketo’opot, telling him that he would make him a great chief if he sacrificed his wife, Wapasoos, and threw her body into the opening in the ice.
Kausketo’opot returned to camp and told Kinosota, his chief, mentor and father-in-law, what had happened at the river. The chief listened in silence and, after thoroughly considering the situation, declared that it was for Wapasoos to decide what would happen. Wapasoos, after hearing the story, immediately agreed to be sacrificed for the sake of her husband. Kausketo’opot, however, was reluctant. Upon seeing her husband’s reluctance, Wapasoos began to plead fervently and incessantly. Although Kausketo’opot put up a fight, his wife’s entreaties and the power of his own ambition eventually proved to be too strong for him. The young brave picked his wife up in his arms, carried her to the river and hurled her into the swirling waters, where she was swallowed up. Overcome with grief, Kausketo’opot buried his face in his hands and sunk to his knees, where he remained for some time. Eventually, the serpent appeared again and spoke to him, telling him that a medicine hat lay under a fallen cottonwood tree by a spring about a mile and a half upriver. The headdress would make him a great medicine man and warrior, and would ensure his success in the upcoming campaign against the enemy.
Kausketo’opot travelled upriver and found, as the serpent foretold, a medicine hat underneath a fallen cottonwood tree. When he returned to the camp with the hat, there was a great powwow and war dance. In the midst of all this, the Blackfoot came upon the Cree unaware and ambushed them. The Cree were forced to cross the river. That night, the Cree decided to get back at the Blackfoot. Using rocks and earth, they built seven humanlike figures and stuck feathers in their heads. Then they made a campfire in the midst of them. When they had finished their handiwork, they retired to the cover of the trees and waited. After some time, the Blackfoot wandered by to inspect the scene. The Cree sprang from concealment and attacked. Many Blackfoot warriors were killed in the initial assault. The survivors fled across the river and scattered.
Jack Fuller, an amateur Albertan historian interested in Indian lore, recorded another explanation for Medicine Hat’s name in 1946. Fuller heard the explanation from his friend Red Buffalo, a Peigan Blackfoot from Cardston, Alberta. In the hopes of winning a contest organized by the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce, Fuller submitted his story, along with a watercolor of an Indian headdress.
Many winters ago, before the coming of the white man, a band of Peigan Blackfoot were camped on the South Saskatchewan River near present day Medicine Hat. In those days, the Indians of the plains were without horses, and so they could not carry enough food with them to survive the winter. Instead, they depended almost entirely on fresh game during the cold winter months. Buffalo, the Blackfoot’s primary quarry, migrated south during the winter, often travelling in close proximity to the river (the buffalo’s old migration route is roughly followed by the Alberta Highway 41, or the “Buffalo Trail”, which begins just north of Bonnyville and ends on the American border just northwest of Havre, Montana). The buffalo, afraid to cross the ice, often accumulated in the river bend where the east-running South Saskatchewan River turns north (Medicine Hat). There, Indian hunters could make short work of the buffalo and survive the winter.
This particular winter, however, was especially severe. The winter had taken its toll on the buffalo population, and so the Peigan were forced to turn to alternative sources of sustenance like deer, rabbits and prairie chickens. Although prairie Indians would typically avoid eating fish, as they regarded underground and underwater creatures with fear, these Peigan realized that even a fish would fill a hungry belly. After several hunters unsuccessfully tried to spear fish through openings in the ice, an old man, who had travelled many trails, spoke of how the tribes to the south caught fish. These tribes, he said, would wait until nightfall before lighting torches, which they would hold above the water on the side of their canoes. The fish would swim up towards the light, where they could be caught more easily. Many of the superstitious Peigan felt that venturing out onto the ice at night was bad medicine, and so few volunteered for the job. One young woman, however, along with her grandmother, agreed to go out onto the ice. This young woman loved one of the braves in the tribe, but had been forced to marry an older chief at her father’s insistence. Several days earlier, the chiefs announced that they would hold a sacred dance intended to bring luck to the hunters, and so the girl secretly made a red-dyed porcupine quill headdress for her lover to wear at the dance. She kept this headdress tucked into her bosom for fear that her father might find it.
The night before the dance, the girl and her grandmother ventured out onto the ice, one with a torch and the other with the spear. The rest of the tribe watched fearfully from the shore in superstitious anticipation. As soon as the women leaned over a hole in the ice with their torch, the ice underneath them cracked. There was a shriek, a loud noise and then a huge burst of fire that lit up the entire width of the river. In an instant, the flame died out and the two women were nowhere to be seen. The next morning, when the men of the tribe went to search for the women, they found only the young woman’s red porcupine headdress laying on the ice at the water’s edge among a pile of ashes.
In 1991, when the Saamis Teepee that had once stood in Calgary Olympic Park was re-erected above the Saamis archeological site in Medicine Hat, another story explaining the origin of the name Medicine Hat emerged. This story was told by Dan Weasel Moccasin, a Blood Elder, and was immortalized in a didactic label inside the Saamis Teepee. Variations of Weasel Moccasin’s legend had been told several times in the past. From 1903-1907, American anthropologist Clark David Wissler spent time among the Blackfeet of Montana and the Bloods, Peigan and Siksika Blackfoot of Alberta. During his time among the Blackfoot, Wissler recorded a similar story to Weasel Moccasin’s in his article, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians, for the American Museum of Natural History. Two earlier story bearing resemblance to Weasel Moccasin’s legend were respectively documented by men named Paul Wolf and Joe Little Chief. It is also interesting to note that Weasel Moccasin’s legend is vaguely similar to the story of Thunder Bear, told by McKay and Sallows.
Long ago, a Blackfoot named Eagle Birth (Eagle-Bull in Wissler’s Version, Black Eagle in Wolf’s Version) ran off with another man’s wife. Together, they came to what is present day Medicine Hat. One day, Eagle Birth’s woman saw an enormous headdress among the river cliffs. Each of the headdress’ feathers were as long as a man. The woman showed Eagle Birth the headdress, but upon closer inspection they discovered that it was only a huge piece of sagebrush. That night, Eagle Birth dreamed that a merman spoke to him, offering to make him a better hunter in exchange for a human to eat. Upon awakening, Eagle Birth resolved to accept the merman’s offer. He didn’t want to sacrifice his lover, however, and so he killed his dog, dismembered it, and threw its body into the river. The dog’s carcass had hardly touched the water before it was flung out onto the shore. The merman, apparently, was displeased with the substitute. The next day, after being visited again by the disappointed merman in his dreams, Eagle Birth set out to find a solution. As he was contemplating, he happened upon a starving stranger wearing a lynx hat. After conversing with the stranger via sign language, Eagle Birth discovered that he was a member of the Snake tribe, and therefore a bitter enemy of the Blackfoot. Eagle Birth, desperate to appease the merman, invited the Snake to eat with him in his teepee. Along the way, the Snake stopped for a drink by the river, and as he did so Eagle Birth grabbed a large stone and clubbed the Indian to death. Eagle Birth dove into the river with the body and discovered a large teepee beneath the water. Inside the teepee, he saw the merman from his dreams. Eagle Birth entered the teepee and presented the Snake’s body to the merman. True to his word, the merman bestowed Eagle birth with special hunting powers.
Before he could leave the underwater teepee, however, Eagle Birth was approached by an otter. After a brief conversation with the otter and the merman, Eagle Birth discovered that this otter was regularly drowning his fellow Blackfoot upriver near present day Lethbridge. Eagle Birth took the lynx hat off the dead Snake and presented it to the otter as a gift. The otter was so pleased that he gave Eagle Birth permission to draw the waves of the river on his teepee. With his new powers, Eagle Birth killed many animals and eagles. His lover tanned the hides and then selected the finest eagle tail feathers, working them into a headdress that resembled the sagebrush headdress they had seen on the cliff. Eagle Birth instructed his wife to present the feathers and hides to her husband as a gift. The husband accepted the gifts and made peace with Eagle Birth, who then built a teepee and painted it with the waves of the river. From that point on, the site of Eagle Birth’s adventure was known as Eagle Tail Feather Headdress, or Medicine Hat.
Some people suggest that Medicine Hat was named after a cliff or hill in the area that bears the resemblance of a Medicine Hat. The most common of these claims are described below.
One of the earliest claims that Medicine Hat was named after a landmark comes from a marking on a map that was completed in 1883, the year that Medicine Hat was founded. On the 1883 Department of the Interior map, there is a small hill in southeast Alberta labelled ‘Medicine Hat’ that happens to lie just east of the present-day city that bears its name. Some people claim that this hill is Medicine Hat’s namesake. Although there are a number of different explanations as to why the hill was labelled ‘Medicine Hat’, one of the most prominent explanations is based on the alleged account of Corporal Walter Johnson, a North West Mounted Police officer. According to this supposed account, Johnson was searching for a place to build a homestead after his discharge from the service in 1882. One day, while he was riding across the prairies near the South Saskatchewan River, he was joined by a lone Blackfoot warrior. The warrior pointed out the aforementioned hill, which looked vaguely like the headdress of a medicine man, and called it “Saamis”, which is the Blackfoot word for such a headdress. Johnson subsequently took out an entitlement and built a log cabin in the shelter of the hill, which he named ‘Medicine Hat’ after the Indian’s suggestion.
Some anecdotal accounts maintain that Medicine Hat was so named because the valley of the South Saskatchewan River that runs through it looks the feathers that trail from a medicine man’s hat.
A small paragraph in the very first edition of the magazine Alberta Folklore Quarterly (published March 1945) describes yet another legend pertaining to Medicine Hat’s naming. According to a journalist named Bob Edwards, an Indian camping by the South Saskatchewan River on a night many years ago noticed that the moon cast a strange-looking shadow on the ground. The shadow was somewhat akin to the shape of a medicine man’s headdress. After the Indian related the story to his band, the place at which he saw the moon’s shadow was dubbed ‘Medicine Hat’.
The Legend Behind ‘Medicine Hat’ Medicine Hat inherited its name from the native word “saamis” which means medicine man’s hat. A number of legends tell the story of how this city was named. One of these legends is beautifully depicted in a sculptured brick mural at City Hall. Brick Mural of Medicine Hat Name Legend The legend tells of a winter of great famine and hardship for the Blackfoot nation. The elders of the Council chose a young man to save his tribe from starvation. Setting out with his new wife and favourite wolf dog, he journeyed down the ice-bound South Saskatchewan River. After many arduous days they made their way to the “breathing hole” an opening in the ice, located on the river between what is now Police Point and Strathcona Park in Medicine Hat. This location was a sacred place to the First Nations’ people: a place where the water spirits came to breathe.
David Edson Horner was my Grandfather and James Henry Horner was my Great Grandfather.
I am a daughter of Robert McCutcheon, grandson of Sgt Robert McCutcheon & Angeline Gaddy, of Medicine Hat. I know little of my history and found this website very interesting.
Malcolm
Just discovered your site and name origins for Medicine Hat. Good job! There is another legend researched and carved in brick by local artist Jim Marshall (mural is in City Hall). It involves a Blackfoot who sacrificed his wife to the river god in order to learn how to find food for his band in a cold winter. He was directed to make a feathered bonnet from eagle feathers to be found in the cliffs above the river. I have heard also that Saamis might be more like Sa’amis. Little Corn was a close associate of my great-grandfather James Hargrave.
Brian Starnes
Great grandfather was Robert Watson, he came with the NWMP in 1875 to fort Walsh then to Medicine Hat where he lived until he passed away in 1901.
He built the Palace Stable and livery and was the first WATER man in town.
Great site you have.