Peace, War, and Climate Change on the Northern Plains: Bison Hunting in the Neutral Hills during the Mild Winters of 1830–34

Abstract

This article argues that the meaning of Alberta's “Neutral Hills” developed in the context of the periodic mild winters that adversely affected hunting in other areas of the plains and brought groups, even those at war, together in the same hunting grounds. In a region where Aboriginal oral tradition was inextricably linked to the landscape, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot nations), Cree, Nakoda, and Saulteaux found the means to cooperate in seasonal hunting camps. Winter camps provided a context where critical exchanges of labour, oral traditions, and kinship shaped relations among nations, even those at war with each other in other circumstances.