Dupuyer

The panel's refugees were Métis, and what it calls the Riel Rebellion they call the North-West Resistance of 1885, which ended with Canadian troops at Batoche that May and Louis Riel hanged at Regina in November. Families who came south settled along this front of the Rockies, most with no land of their own. Montana's landless Métis and Chippewa, organized as the Little Shell Tribe, waited well over a century for the federal government to recognize them, and Congress finally did so in December 2019.

What the plaque says

Dupuyer Dupuyer Creek was called Osaks itukai (Back fat) by the Blackfeet. It refers to a choice cut of buffalo meat the Indians relished. French Canadian fur trappers translated the name to "Depouille," the French word for hide. Over time, the name was corrupted to Dupuyer. Whiskey traders Joe Kipp and Charlie Thomas settled here to raise cattle in 1874 and sold their holdings to Jimmy Grant in 1877. By the 1880s, the settlement of Dupuyer had become a colorful frontier cattle town and stop on the Fort Shaw-Fort Browning Trail. Dupuyer is the oldest town between Fort Benton and the Rocky Mountains. To the west, following the base of the mountains, lies one of the oldest trails in the United States. It began when early North American natives used it as a primary north- south route. Jim Bridger and the fur trappers knew it as "The Old Travois Trail." When white traders bootlegged whiskey into Canada in the 1870s and 1880s, it became known as the "Pondera Trail." The refugees of the Riel Rebellion came to Dupuyer Creek in 1885 and many remained to make this area their home. The Home Ranch on Dupuyer Creek was headquarters for the famous Seven Block Cattle Company of brothers Charles and William Conrad and a frequent stopping place for Montana's noted western artist, Charlie Russell.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• The Front Range of the Rockies — steps away
• The 564th Missile Squadron — 8.7 mi
• Old Agency 1880-1894 — 19 mi
• Chief Mountain and Old North Trail — 22 mi