Cree in Alberta

Alberta Cree Indian

Dressed to impress both horse and rider.  The Cree are the largest group of indigenous people in North America but here the postcard says we are in Alberta, I wonder if those wooded slopes are the Rocky Mountains?  The Cree feather headdresses were copied from their neighbours the Sioux but originally their warriors wore porcupine roach, that is the porcupine hair, not the sharp quills which I imagine would have been a danger to both themselves and others.  Never having seen a porcupine in real life I am no authority on porcupine roach but this photograph sure looks like how I would imagine it

Chief Duckhunter by A. W. Gelston via Wikimedia Commons

 The wonderfully named Chief Duckhunter photographed in 1913 by A W Gelston of Medicine Hat, a town in southeast Alberta in area that was historically a gathering place for the Blackfoot, Cree and Assiniboine people because  "the gently sloping valley with its converging water ways and hardy native cottonwood trees attracted both humans and the migratory bison herds which passed through the area".  

The Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in Medicine Hat in 1883 bridging the South Saskatchewan River as it steamed across Canada. By the time A W Gelston was taking Chief Duckhunter's photograph it looked like this, not much room for migrating bison  

Postcard Showing the Rail Yard c1911-1913

but an ideal hub for travelling around the area taking photographs to appear on postcards.