Orders, Decorations and Medals

The North West Canada 1885 Medal awarded to Baptiste Fontaine, Battleford Rifles, a veteran of the “Battle of Cut-Knife Hill” who served as a scout and despatch rider for the North West Mounted Police and survived two weeks as a prisoner of the Indian chief “Poundmaker” and his warriors

North West Canada 1885, 1 clasp, Saskatchewan (J. B. Fontaine, Battleford Regt.), officially impressed naming, suspension claw sometime tightened, very fine £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Ron Penhall Collection.

View
Collection

Baptiste Fontaine was a Metis with an Indian mother and French father, and served as a wagon driver and a Private in the Battleford Rifles. At the outbreak of the Riel campaign, however, he was hired by the North West Mounted Police as a scout and despatch rider, an appointment that witnessed his presence at the “Battle of Cut-Knife Hill” on 2 May 1885, soon after which he was wounded and captured by the Indians. An article in the Saskatchewan Herald later reported:

‘On Wednesday last as four scouts were making a visit to the upper settlement they found themselves suddenly confronted by a large body of Indians who made their appearance on the crest of a hill the scouts were ascending. The latter not feeling able to cope with the superior force of the enemy retired amidst a rattling volley of rifles, which the scouts returned as they moved off. Three of the men kept the open but the other one, Baptiste Fontaine, sought refuge in a bluff, and as he has since not been heard of it is feared he has fallen into the hands of the enemy.’

Meanwhile, the Toronto Globe reported that Fontaine had in fact been shot from his horse and was last seen crawling into a wood - and that he had either died or was captured - while in a later version in the Canadian Illustrated War News, he was depicted as having last been seen standing rifle in hand, ‘as though determined to die fighting’. Whatever the exact version of events, he had indeed been taken prisoner, and escaped a grisly end at the hands of the Indian chief, “Poundmaker”, and his warriors, when news was received of the capture of the rebel Riel. The Belleville Ontario Intelligencer of Friday, 22 May 1885 reported his release from captivity under the following circumstances:

‘Battleford, N.W.T., May 21: Poundmaker sent a flag of truce tonight, along with the captive teamsters, two women and a priest, to ask upon what terms he would be allowed to surrender. Baptiste Fontaine, the scout supposed to have been killed a fortnight ago while on a scouting expedition under Constable Ross, came in with the released prisoners. He says Poundmaker was badly broken up yesterday on hearing of Riel’s surrender. The Indians were terribly frightened, and piled their rifles in a tepee and hoisted an old British flag, which they captured somewhere. They then held a big council and decided upon sending in this letter asking for terms of surrender. There is a great rejoicing here over Poundmaker’s collapse.’

Sold with a modern pastel painting depicting Fontaine ‘receiving instructions from Colonel Otter’, together with a modern woven belt, or “Ceinture Fleche”, as worn by Metis men, and a copy of the relevant medal roll entry which states that the recipient was issued with his Medal and clasp in July 1889.