Willie Dunn’s “The Ballad of Crowfoot” emerged in the late 1960s, at a time when Indigenous voices were seldom heard in Canada’s cultural mainstream. With minimal instrumentation and plainspoken delivery, the ballad retells the life of Crowfoot, a Blackfoot leader and diplomat remembered for his resilience during a period of broken treaties and devastating colonial changes.
Dunn, born in Montreal in 1941 to a Mi’kmaq mother and Scottish father, built his career as both a musician and filmmaker. His songs were grounded in the folk tradition and focused sharply on history and politics. Instead of elaborate arrangements, he favoured restraint: voice, guitar, and words carrying the narrative. Comparisons were made to folk icons like Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan, but Dunn’s perspective was distinctly his own, rooted in Indigenous experience and memory.
In “The Ballad of Crowfoot”, Crowfoot’s story unfolds during one of the most turbulent periods in Plains history. By the mid-19th century, the buffalo herds that sustained the Plains Nations had been driven to near extinction by commercial hunting, while epidemics like smallpox decimated communities. At the same time, waves of settlers and government officials pressed westward, bringing growing pressure to surrender land. In 1877, Crowfoot became a central figure in the signing of Treaty 7, which ceded vast portions of Blackfoot territory in southern Alberta in exchange for promises of food, medical aid, and agricultural support.
Today the treaty stands on the table / Will you sign it? Are you able? / It offers food and protection too / Do you really think they’ll hold it true? / It offers a reserve, now isn’t that grand? / And in return you cede all of your land / And it’s eighteen hundred seventy-seven / And you know the scales are so uneven
Many of these commitments went unfulfilled, leaving the Blackfoot to endure hunger, disease, and mounting restrictions on their way of life. Government policies later compounded these hardships by suppressing language and ceremony in an effort to assimilate future generations. Crowfoot’s choice to sign has often been remembered as pragmatic, an attempt to protect his people, but it also marked a devastating turning point. Dunn’s ballad places this history at its centre, portraying Crowfoot as a leader navigating impossible decisions in the face of upheaval.
Well, the buffalo are slaughtered, there is nothin’ to eat / The government’s late again with the meat / And your people are riddled with the white man’s disease / And in the summer they’re sick and in the winter they freeze and / Sometimes you wonder why you signed that day / But they broke the treaties themselves anyway
In 1968, Dunn brought the song into a new medium with a short film for the National Film Board of Canada. Often described as Canada’s first music video, it set his ballad against a montage of archival photographs, etchings, and newspaper clippings. The film was groundbreaking not only in form but also in authorship: it was the first Indigenous-directed film at the NFB and the inaugural release of the Indian Film Crew, the institution’s first all-Indigenous production unit. By uniting music with imagery, Dunn extended the ballad’s reach and impact, turning it into both song and visual record of colonial betrayal.
More than half a century later, “The Ballad of Crowfoot” remains deeply relevant. It speaks directly to the themes at the heart of National Day of Truth and Reconciliation: land loss, cultural suppression, and the endurance of Indigenous nations. The song’s clarity and the film’s imagery refuse to let history fade into abstraction, underscoring that reconciliation must begin with truth and with an honest reckoning of Canada’s past.
Perhaps one day the truth shall prevail / And the warmth of love which it does entail / Crowfoot, Crowfoot, why the tears? / You’ve been a brave man for many years / Why the sadness? Why the sorrow? / Maybe there’ll be a better tomorrow
As both music and testimony, “The Ballad of Crowfoot” honours a leader’s story while confronting the injustices that continue to shape Indigenous experience in Canada. At the same time, Dunn’s closing words gesture toward possibility, holding space for the hope of a better tomorrow. On a day set aside for reflection, the work stands as a reminder of how song can preserve memory, open paths to healing, and help carry reconciliation forward.
