The importance of this site in the Rural Municipality of Whitehead, near the Trans-Canada Highway, was recognized in the 1940s by farmer Francis Parker “Frank” Stott. The rich animal and plant resources of this portion of the Assiniboine River valley sustained Indigenous peoples long before Europeans settled the area.
For at least 1,200 years, hunters periodically stampeded bison down the valley slope onto the flood plain where the animals were trapped and killed with spears and arrows. Parts of the butchered carcasses were carried to camps on the slopes where meat was stripped from the bones and made into jerky and pemmican. The bones were fashioned into tools and ornaments, or smashed and boiled in clay pots to extract the “bone butter”. The hides were made into shelters, clothing, and containers. Freshwater clams, fish, beaver, muskrat, and wild plants supplemented the diet of bison meat. Stone tools were fashioned from local fine-grained stone and from Knife River Flint quarried in western North Dakota.
The remains of an extensive Indigenous settlement at the site, determined to have been inhabited for long periods of time, was excavated by archeologists, including work by Ralph Durham Bird from 1947 to 1952.
A commemorative plaque was installed in May 1948 at this provincially-designated historic site by the Historic Sites Advisory Board of Manitoba.
Ralph Durham Bird with archaeological excavations at Stott site (October 1952)
Source: Charles Bird
Indigenous projectiles evacated at Stott site (October 1952)
Source: Charles Bird
Stott site and commemorative plaque (September 2011)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
Stott commemorative plaque (July 2021)
Source: George PennerSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.87327, W100.08627
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Memorable Manitobans: Francis Parker “Frank” Stott (1909-1991)
Memorable Manitobans: Ralph Durham Bird (1901-1972)
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Clay Banks Buffalo Jump (Municipality of Cartwright-Roblin)
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Arden Camp Site (Arden, Municipality of Glenella-Lansdowne)
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Provincially Designated Historic Sites
Report of Investigations at Stott Site, 1947 by R. D. Bird, unpublished manuscript on file with Historic Resources Branch, Winnipeg
The Stott Mound and Village, near Brandon, Manitoba by R. S. MacNeish, 1954. National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 132. Ottawa, Ontario.
“Old Indian burial site unearthed near Brandon” by Chris Vickers, Winnipeg Free Press, 17 October 1952, page 1.
Stott Mound and Camp Site (DIMa-1), SW35-10-20W, Brandon area, RM of Whitehead, Manitoba Historic Resources Branch.
We thank George Penner and Charles Bird for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 27 March 2024
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