ment. The Indians have confidence in the Police,
and it might be some time before they would acquire the same respect for
strangers." That this suggestion was carried out, is attested the next
year by that well-known officer, Superintendent Winder, who in his
report says: "Inspector Macdonnell and party arrived from Fort Walsh
with money for the Indian payments. Inspector McIllree paid the Bloods
at MacLeod, Inspector Dickens the Piegans on their reserve, Inspector
Frechette the Stoneys at Morley-ville, and I accompanied the agent to
the Blackfeet Crossing to assist in paying the Indians there." All this
requires no comment further than to say that when the fighting Sioux
across the line tried to inveigle these warlike tribes into a war of
extermination against the whites, and later when the fiercely magnetic
Louis Riel sought to get them to join his revolt, the great work in the
consummation of Treaty Number Seven stood Canada in good stead.

One more great treaty had still to be made, and though it is
anticipating a date twenty years after the famous Number Seven Treaty,
we record it here before closing the chapter of treaties with the
Indians of the North-West. A vast region away northward from Edmonton,
known generally as the Athabasca, Peace River and Mackenzie River
region, had so far not been brought under treaty conditions. This was
mainly due to the fact that settlement had not been making its way into
that region. It was considered the home of the fur-trader and the hunter
more than that of the farmer or the stock-raiser. But the investigations
brought about by the Senate Committee at Ottawa on the motion and under
the leadership of Senator (Sir John) Schultz, had called so much
attention to the great agricultural possibilities of the country that,
despite the total absence of railways, settlers were percolating slowly
into that great northern area. Then the gold-rush to the Klondike began
midway in the nineties, and as some of this rush was either going
through the Peace River country to the Yukon or scattering down the
northern rivers, it became necessary, in the view of the Mounted Police,
who made recommendations to the Government, to make a treaty as early
as possible, in order to prevent trouble. Accordingly, the Hon. Clifford
Sifton, then Superintendent-General of Indian affairs in the Laurier
Government, began arrangements in 1898 which led to the appointment of a
Commission and the making of Treaty Num