Chief Piapot

Payipwât ("One Who Knows the Secrets of the Sioux"), known in Canadian history as Chief Piapot, was one of the most influential Plains Cree leaders of the 19th century. Guiding over a hundred Cree lodges across the Cypress Hills and Qu'Appelle Valley, Piapot signed Treaty 4 in 1875, demanding agricultural education and famine relief for his starving people after the buffalo disappeared.

In 1883, Piapot famously pitched his lodges directly on the construction route of the Canadian Pacific Railway near Maple Creek, halting track-laying until peaceful negotiations with the North-West Mounted Police occurred. Despite repeated arrests by colonial authorities, Piapot defiantly preserved Cree spiritual ceremonies and the sacred Sun Dance.