Battle of Duck Lake (1885)

Early on the morning of 26 March 1885 a party of 22 policemen encountered Métis military leader Gabriel Dumont and his men on the road to Duck Lake (Sask.). There was a noisy confrontation and the police retreated. Later in the morning a much larger party of nearly 100 police and volunteers with a seven-pounder field gun headed back to Duck Lake. There was a brief parley, but someone began shooting and the fight quickly spread. Dumont’s men outnumbered the police and volunteers about three to one, and he sent them to outflank the enemy on both sides of the trail. The government forces were soon in danger of total defeat. All might have been killed or captured had Gabriel Dumont not suffered a slight head wound early on that prevented him from leading his men. He turned the command over to his brother Édouard, but Louis Riel, who ordered the killing to stop, kept the retreat of the police and volunteers from becoming a slaughter. The battle of Duck Lake was the first confrontation of the Northwest Rebellion.