Led by Wandering Spirit, Cree men attacked and killed nine officials, clergy and settlers in the small settlement of Frog Lake, at the time in the District of Saskatchewan in the North-West Territories[1] on April 2, 1885.

[2] He had signed Treaty 6 in 1882[3] and been pushed to move his band near Fort Pitt, located about 55 km (34 mi) from Frog Lake, but had not yet selected a reserve site.

[6] The largest local source of supplies were the government stables, the Hudson's Bay Company post and George Dill's store at Frog Lake.

[7] Indian Agent Thomas Quinn, as an official of the Canadian government, was seen to be protecting the supplies and therefore an obstacle to Wandering Spirit's aims.

[3][5] But the attacks that occurred were perpetrated by several members of Big Bear's band, which had moved into the area not long before, not the local Cree.

[9] A group of armed Cree men led by the war chief Wandering Spirit took Thomas Quinn, hostage in his home in the early morning of April 2.

[citation needed] After the massacre, several of the Métis residents who were now captive hurriedly placed the bodies of Fafard, Marchand, Delaney and Gowanlock in the cellar under the church.

The Frog Lake incident, along with the Métis rebellion at the same time, prompted the Canadian government to send troops and police to the area.

[17] On June 14 the Midland Battalion (the advance guard of Major-General Thomas Bland Strange's Alberta Field Force) arrived and buried the victims of the massacre in the cemetery.

When the rebellion was put down and law and order restored, Wandering Spirit, the war chief responsible for the Frog Lake incident, walked to Fort Pitt where he turned himself in.

In 2008, Christine Tell (provincial minister for tourism, parks, culture and sport) said "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.