[1] Members of a band of Cree led by war chief Wandering Spirit, living in what is now central Alberta and Saskatchewan joined the North-West Rebellion of 1885 after the government forces' defeat at the Battle of Duck Lake.

The starving fighters 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.

[2] While he left some of his force to provide protection for isolated white settlements along the way, he secured Edmonton then he led his column east to Fort Pitt.

Over the next few days, Strange's scouts fought skirmishes with small groups of Cree and in pursuit of Big Bear, marched to the area of Frenchman's Butte.

Wandering Spirit, the Cree war chief, led some 200 fighters to take positions in trenches and rifle pits on top of the hill, while Little Poplar and the other group remained to protect the camp, some 3 kms (two miles) away.

As well, movement forward came under fire from Cree fighters on top of a steep, open hillside, making a frontal assault suicidal.

Eventually, General Strange ordered Major Sam Steele to lead the NWMP north and outflank the Cree fighters.

The Métis had been defeated at the Battle of Batoche three weeks earlier, and Poundmaker's joint Cree-Assiniboine force had surrendered.

In the spring of 2008, Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Christine Tell proclaimed in Duck Lake, that "the 125th commemoration, in 2010, of the 1885 Northwest Resistance is an excellent opportunity to tell the story of the prairie Métis and First Nations peoples' struggle with Government forces and how it has shaped Canada today".

[3] Frenchman Butte is a national historic site of Canada, which locates the theatre of the 1885 battle staged between Cree and Canadian troops.