Keeseekoowenin (c. 1818 – 10 April 1906) was a First Nations leader during the period when Canada was expanding into the prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
[2] Some traditions say that Chief Okanase's sister was wife of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trader George Flett.
[1] Led by Chief Okanase, the band hunted, trapped and traded with the Fort Ellice and Riding Mountain House HBC posts.
His band signed Treaty Two with the Canadian federal government in 1871, obtaining land around the Turtle and Valley rivers near Dauphin Lake.
[1] When parts of the treaty were renegotiated in 1875, Keeseekoowenin and his brother Baptiste Bone were recognised by the government as chiefs of the band, since Mekis had recently died.
Government and church officials praised Keeseekoowenin's group as model Christian farmers, while disparaging the more "primitive" Clear Lake hunters and fishers.