In honour of Louis Riel Day, here’s a song I wrote about his partner and leader of the Metis in the War of 1885.
I read that after the war, and he was declared an “outlaw” who, if captured, would share the same fate as Louis Riel (hanging), Gabriel Dumont escaped to the USA where he briefly joined Buffalo Bill’s Show as a “Canadian Outlaw and Buffalo Hunter,” he said (as he looked around and saw what was happening to his beloved country), “This damn country is getting too soft for me.”
I took that line and put it into my song “Barbwire Fences” where I use the voice of Gabriel Dumont. Note: Barbwire was invented in 1873. Barbwire was the invention that allowed the unthinkable (at the time): fencing-in the great North American West. Cheers, friends!