stretch out a long arm and take hold of us before we can get away."
The government of Canada had, anticipating the probabilities of
such a state of affairs, wisely resolved, that contemporaneously
with the formal establishment of their rule, there should be formed
alliances with the Indians. In 1870 the Parliament of Canada
created the requisite machinery for the Government of the Province
of Manitoba and of the North-West Territories respectively, giving
to the former a Lieutenant-Governor and Legislature, and to
the latter, a Lieutenant-Governor and Council, Executive and
Legislative--the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba being ex officio
Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories. Subsequently the
North-West Territories were erected into a distinct government,
with a Lieutenant-Governor and Executive, and Legislative Council.
The District of Kee-wa-tin, "the land of the north wind," was also
established, comprising the eastern and northern portions of the
Territories, and placed under the control of the Lieutenant-Governor
of Manitoba, and an Executive and Legislative Council. Since 1870,
no less than seven treaties have been concluded, with the Indian
tribes, so that there now remain no Indian nations in the North-West,
inside of the fertile belt, who have not been dealt with.

It is the design of the present work to tell the story of these
treaties, to preserve as far as practicable, a record of the
negotiations on which they were based, and to present to the many
in the Dominion and elsewhere, who take a deep interest in these
sons of the forest and the plain, a view of their habits of thought
and speech, as thereby presented, and to suggest the possibility,
nay, the certainty, of a hopeful future for them.

Prior to proceeding to deal, with the treaties of the Dominion of