Dempsey Hugh Aylmer - Maskepetoon: leader, warrior, peacemaker

Hugh A. Dempsey is an author, historian and researcher. He is the former associate director of the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, and is currently its chief curator emeritus. He also is editor of the quarterly Alberta History .

Dempsey holds a number of honours, including the Order of Canada, an honorary doctorate from the University of Calgary, an honorary chieftainship of the Blood tribe, the SirFrederickHaultain Award for Excellence, an Alberta Booksellers Award, an Alberta Non-Fiction Award and a life membership in the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede.

Dempsey is the author of nineteen books on western Canadian history and has edited another seventeen. He has written nine monographs and more than two hundred articles for periodicals, books and newspapers. He is a well-known lecturer and specialist on the history of the Native peoples of western Canada and the early history of Alberta.

Among the books he has written are Crowfoot: Chief of the Blackfeet ; The Golden Age of the Canadian Cowboy ; Calgary: Spirit of the West ; Charcoal's World ; Big Bear: The End of Freedom ; Treasures of the Glenbow Museum ; Firewater: The Impact of the Whisky Trade on the Blackfoot Nation ; Christmas in the West ; and The Vengeful Wife and Other Blackfoot Stories.

Hugh is married to Pauline (ne Gladstone) of the Blood tribe, and they have five children, eleven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Pauline and Hugh celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary in 2010.

Books and articles

Ahenakew, Edward. Voices of the Plains Cree. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 1973.

Arnett, Margaret, ed. The Letters of Letitia Hargrave . Toronto: Champlain Society, 1947.

Berry, J.P. Maskepetoon: Albertas First Martyr to Peace . Toronto: United Church of Canada, 1945.

Bradley, James H. Characteristics, Habits and Customs of the Blackfeet Indians. Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana 9 (1923): 25687.

_____. Affairs at Fort Benton from 1831 to 1869. Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana 3 (1900): 20187.

Butler, William F. The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, & Searle, 1874.

Campbell, John V. The Sinclair PartyAn Emigration Overland Along the Old Hudson Bay Route from Manitoba to the Spokane Country in 1854. The Washington Historical Quarterly 7, no. 3 (July 1916): 187201.

Catlin, George. North American Indians, Being Letters and Notes on their Manners, Customs, and Conditions. Philadelphia: Leary, Stuart & Co., 1913.

Chittenden, Hiram M. The American Fur Trade of the Far West. Stanford: Academic Reprints, 1954.

_____, and Alfred Talbot Richardson, eds. Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., 18011873 . New York: Francis P. Harper, 1905.

Coues, Elliott, ed. New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry, Fur Trader of the Northwest Company, and of David Thompson, Official Geographer of the same Company, 17991814. New York: Francis P. Harper, 1897.

Dempsey, Hugh A. The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories. Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 1994.

_____. A Blackfoot Winter Count. Calgary: Glenbow Foundation, 1965.

_____. Firewater: The Impact of the Whisky Trade on the Blackfoot Nation. Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 2002.

_____. Maskepetoon. Dictionary of Canadian Biography , vol. 9 (1976), 53738. Also at www.biographi.ca.

_____. Red Crow: Warrior Chief. Saskatoon: Prairie Books, 1980.

_____. Treasures of the Glenbow Museum . Calgary: Glenbow Museum, 1991.

_____, ed. Heaven is Near the Rocky Mountains: The Journals and Letters of Thomas Woolsey, 18551868 . Calgary: Glenbow Museum, 1989.

_____, ed. Simpsons Essay on the Blackfoot, 1841. Alberta History 38, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 214.

Denig, Edwin Thomas. Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Sioux, Arikaras, Assiniboines, Crees, Crows . Edited by John C. Ewers. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

Dion, Joseph F. My Tribe the Crees. Calgary: Glenbow Museum, 1979.

Doll, Maurice F.V., Robert S. Kidd, and John P. Day. The Buffalo Lake Metis Site: A Late Nineteenth Century Settlement in the Parkland of Central Alberta. Edmonton: Provincial Museum of Alberta, 1988.

Drouin, E.O. Lac Ste. Anne Sakahigan . Edmonton: Editions de lErmitage, 1973.

_____. Ongoing Mission of Central Alberta. Hobbema: privately printed, 1968.

Dunseith Steering Committee. Prairie Past and Mountain Memories: A History of Dunseith, N. Dakota, 18821982. Dunseith: Dunseith Steering Committee, 1982.

Edmonton Journal , August 17, 1929.

Erasmus, Peter. Buffalo Days and Nights . As told to Henry Thompson. Edited by Irene M. Spry. Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1976.

Ewers, John C. When the Light Shone in Washington. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 6, no. 4 (Autumn 1956): 26.

_____. The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958.

Fine Day, My Cree People. Invermere, BC: Good Medicine Books, 1973.

Flett, George. Broken Arm as a Peace Maker. Manitoba Pageant 7, no. 1 (September 1961).

Glazebrook, G.P. de T., ed., The Hargrave Correspondence, 18211843 . Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1938.

Goddard, Earle Pliny. Notes on the Sun Dance of the Cree of Alberta. American Museum of Natural History 16 (1919): 295310.

Graham, Frederick Ulric. Notes of a Sporting Expedition in the Far West of Canada, 1847 . London: privately printed, 1898.

Griesbach, W.A., ed. The Narrative of James Gibbons. Alberta Historical Review 6, no. 3 (Summer 1958): 16.

Holterman, Jack. King of the High Missouri: The Saga of the Culbertsons. Helena: Falcon Press, 1987.

Hughes, Katherine. Father Lacombe, The Black-Robed Voyageur. Toronto: William Briggs, 1911.

Hutchinson, Gerald M., and Hugh A. Dempsey, eds., The Rundle Journals, 18401848. Calgary: Historical Society of Alberta, 1977.

Jenness, Diamond. The Sarcee Indians of Alberta. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, 1938.

Johnson, A.M., ed., Saskatchewan Journals and Correspondence. London: The Hudsons Bay Record Society, 1967.

Kane, Paul. Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America. Toronto: The Radisson Society of Canada Ltd., 1925.

Karamitsanis, Aphrodite. Place Names of Alberta, Volume 1: Mountains, Mountain Parks and Foothills . Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1991.

Larpenteur, Charles. Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri . Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1933.

_____. The Original Journal of Charles Larpenteur: My Travels to the Rocky Mountains between 1833 and 1872. Edited by Michael M. Casler. Chadron, NE: The Museum Association of the American Frontier, 2007.

Lent, D. Geneva. West of the Mountains: James Sinclair and the Hudsons Bay Company . Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963.

London Daily Free Press , September 7, 1886.

Maclean, John. The Hero of the Saskatchewan. Barrie, ON: Barrie Examiner Printing & Publishing House, 1891.

Mandelbaum, David G. The Plains Cree: An Ethnological, Historical, and Comparative Study. Regina, SK: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1979.

Manitoba Free Press , August 5, 1886.

McDougall, John. George Millard McDougall, Pioneer, Patriot and Missionary. Toronto: William Briggs, 1902.

_____. Forest, Lake and Prairie. Toronto: William Briggs, 1910.

_____. In the Days of the Red River Rebellion. Toronto: William Briggs, 1903.

_____. Pathfinding on Plain and Prairie . Toronto: William Briggs, 1898.

_____. Saddle, Sled and Snowshoe: Pioneering on the Saskatchewan in the Sixties. Toronto: William Briggs, 1896.