The Battle of Batoche is the best-known confrontation between Métis and British soldiers in the Northwest Resistance of 1885. It remains one of Canada’s most emotion-laden memories, eloquently revisited in this revised and expanded edition.The strategies of both sides are thoroughly examined, and numerous maps and photographs offer detailed description of the fateful battle. Introduction by Jean Teillet, great-grandniece of Louis Riel.

Historian and poet Walter Hildebrant was born in Brooks, Alberta and now lives in Edmonton. He has worked as an historian for Parks Canada and as a consultant to the Treaty 7 Tribal Council, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and the Banff Bow Valley Task Force. He is co-author of The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 and The Cypress Hills: The Land and Its People, and author of Views From Battleford: Constructed Visions of an Anglo-Canadian West. His long poem Sightings was nominated for the 1992 McNally-Robinson Book of the Year for Manitoba. His book Where the Land Gets Broken won the Stephen G. Stephensson Award for Poetry in 2005. He is presently the Director of the Athabasca University Press. This is his seventh book of poetry.

Walter Hildebrandt's profile page

Jean Teillet, IPC (B.F.A., LL.B., LL.M.), Partner, Pape Salter Teillet LLP, Barristers & Solicitors, Vancouver, BC and Toronto, ON.  

Ms. Teillet is called to the Bar in Ontario, BC, NWT, Manitoba and Yukon.  She specializes in aboriginal rights litigation and negotiations and is currently the chief negotiator for the Stó:lo Xwexwilmexw >who are negotiating a treaty in the lower Fraser Valley in BC.  >Ms. Teillet has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada in ten cases.  She maintains an active role as a public speaker and primarily speaks on aboriginal rights, access to justice, identity and equality issues.  She is published in many journals and law books and is the author of the annually updated Métis Law in Canada.  In addition to her aboriginal rights work, Ms. Teillet works in the field of reproductive rights.  She is an adjunct professor at the UBC Faculty of Law.

Ms. Teillet was the first recipient of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Lincoln Alexander Award.  In 2011, Ms. Teillet was awarded the title “Indigenous Peoples’ Counsel” by the Indigenous Bar Association.  In 2012, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.  She has been awarded two honorary doctorates: Guelph University (2014); Law Society of Upper Canada (2015). 

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Ms. Teillet worked for twenty years as a writer, dancer, actor, choreographer, director and producer. 

Jean has also been a visual artist for over thirty years.  Her work is in private collections in the United States and Canada.  One beaded piece, a replica of the “Two Row Wampum Belt” hangs in Flavelle Hall in the Law School of the University of Toronto as a symbol that two different peoples may embrace different legal regimes and still establish a working relationship if that relationship is built on respect and honesty.  The University of Toronto Faculty of Law also holds three other replica wampum belts created by Ms. Teillet – the Covenant Chain Belt, the Micmac Vatican Belt and the Hiawatha Belt. 

Ms. Teillet is the great grand niece of Louis Riel.

Jean Teillet's profile page

“Walter Hildebrandt takes a meticulous look at the Battle of Batoche and provides unique insight into an event pivotal to the history of the Canadian prairies. The study is balanced in its provision of various perspectives and personal accounts and generously includes many historical images and maps sure to please history lovers.”
– Blair Stonechild, Professor of Indigenous Studies, First Nations University of Canada

“Each year since the battle at Batoche in 1885, Métis people gather there to commemorate the sacrifices of our ancestors and celebrate our culture. Despite the defeat on the battlefield and the subsequent execution of our leader Louis Riel, Batoche personifies the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of displacement, marginalization and indifference.
I welcome this book for accurately capturing the military history of the North-West Resistance. Instilling in Canadians an appreciation of the powerful forces at work during that period can foster a better understanding of the challenges faced today by the Métis Nation in its ongoing struggle for self-determination within Canada.”
– Clem Chartier, President, Métis National Council

“The Battle of Batoche: British Small Warfare and the Entrenched Métis is worth acquiring just for the quality of its introductory and concluding sections. Precise writing and perceptive analysis make this study a pleasure to read … Hildebrandt is one of the few authors that carefully places the events of 1885 in a national and international context.”
—Manitoba History