In some ways, the history of the Red is like the river itself-steady, quiet, sedate-until it suddenly explodes, forging new boundaries and completely transforming the land that surrounds it. Like the raging floodwaters that carve new paths in the prairie landscape, the force and fervour of legendary Métis leader Louis Riel set off a chain of events that forever altered the course of North West Canadian history.

Louis David Riel remains one of the most controversial figures of Canada's past. In 1870, he was hailed by many Red River settlers-Métis and Scottish alike-as the founder of the province of Manitoba and a visionary protector of bilingual rights and freedoms.

By 1885, however, he was vilified by former supporters and by much of English Canada as a murderer, traitor and megalomaniac. In November of that year, he was hanged by the Canadian government for high treason, following a dramatic national debate about culture, language and central Canadian economic power that continues to the present day.

Manitoba Mission: Riel was born in 1844, in the Red River Settlement, part of the French-Native Métis culture that co-existed with Scottish and English-speaking mixed-blood ("country born") residents of the Selkirk colony. Ambitious, eloquent and highly intelligent, the young Riel was sent to Montreal for higher education. When he returned to the Red River Settlement in the 1860's, he found an uneasy urban centre of 12,000 people, simmering with hostilities between Anglo-Protestants and Roman Catholic Métis.

When Prime Minister John A. Macdonald of the new Canadian confederation began calling for the annexation of northwestern Rupert's Land, Riel came forward to unite the settlers against wholesale federal takeover. He led opposition to the Canadian proposal to re-survey and re-distribute all of the land in the Red River Settlement, ignoring the established river lot land tenure of the residents.

Red River Rebellion: In 1869, when the Hudson's Bay Company sold Rupert's Land to Canada, and government land surveyors arrived, Riel and his supporters took control of Upper Fort Garry. They called for a provisional government to replace the decades-old Council of Assiniboia, and submitted a "List of Rights" that included property, religious and language protection. Riel's Red River Rebellion was partially successful. In 1870, the Canadian government passed the Manitoba Act, enshrining-at least temporarily- many of the rights and freedoms proposed by Riel.

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Leader in Exile, Mystic in the Making: Unfortunately, Riel's triumph had been marred by one extreme act, the execution in 1869 of Thomas Scott, a hot-headed and vociferous Anglo-Canadian.

Local condemnation of the execution faded away, but anti-Riel political elements in the Canadian government never forgot what they regarded as a blatant act of murder. Despite being elected three times to the Parliament of Canada, Riel never took his seat. Instead, he retreated to the United States to avoid prosecution. There, his life-long religious devotion developed into a full-blown religious mania. Riel began to regard himself as the spiritual prophet of a new and mighty Métis nation. His delusions led to prolonged hospitalization in a Quebec asylum.

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A Rebel's Last Stand: After leaving the asylum, Riel lived quietly for some time in upper Montana, working as a trader and interpreter. But in 1883, he was convinced by the famous buffalo hunter and Red River Métis leader, Gabriel Dumont, to join a new settlers' rights movement in southern Saskatchewan. Riel returned to Canada and to confrontation, meeting the North West Mounted Police in two bloody battles. While Dumont escaped to the United States, Riel was captured.

Riel was tried for treason in Regina, by an English-only jury, under a medieval statute that imposed a mandatory death penalty if convicted. Although his sanity was the central issue of his trial, Riel delivered a statement in his own defence that portrayed a reasoned and mostly secular vision of a multicultural society for the Canadian west. Riel's impending fate sparked a storm of debate between French and Anglo-Canadian political camps, but failed to save Riel's life. On November 16, 1885, Riel was hanged in a North West Mounted Police barracks in Regina.