Riel Resistance 1885, Métis, Gabriel Dumont -- 1838-1906, Metis--Biography 

""There is one hour in the history of the Métis rebellion that has haunted me more than any other episode in Canadian history. It is not one of the more obviously dramatic hours: not the time of Riel's execution, or his condemnation, or of the illusory triumphs that punctuated both his existence and the history of the Métis people. It is the moment when fugitives met in a spring-green gully in northern Saskatchewan, and among the leafing willows Riel and Gabriel Dumont met and talked for the last time."

With these words George Woodcock introduces his perceptive and powerful biography of Gabriel Dumont, the legendary Métis plainsman, guerrilla general and enigmatic comrade of Louis Riel. Dumont's character and motives arouse a curiosity that is not satisfied by the superficial man-of-action image that exists in the popular mind. How is it that a figure of such strength should be influenced by Riel to the extent that, seeing the rebellion of 1885 failing because of his leader's vacillation, he still fought until all was lost but his own life? And why is it that history celebrates Riel the visionary and martyr, rather than Dumont the hero — a man whose "spirit and physical presence personified the Métis people at the height of their pride" — as the symbol of the disinherited in Canadian society? Woodcock brings a fresh and cosmopolitan perspective to the events which brought together these two men and he answers that in Dumont, a resolute son of his nation, we may yet find an example and a symbol of a different kind."--Book jacket.