A Piece Of Canadiana: The Big Muddy. Canada's Badlands

Slowly peace came to the valley. The Mounties moved away

No more outlaws in the Big Muddy. At least that is what they say.

Big Muddy Country by Michael Burgess


The Big Muddy: Just the name is enough to conjure up some harsh and wild images. A place Butch Cassidy called the "Devil's Playground."

From Canadian Cowboy Country:

"Located straight south of Regina, the Big Muddy Valley is truly one of the more spectacular regions of the province. Just north of the Medicine Line (U.S. border) the towns of Big Beaver and Minton are the outposts of this region. Thousands of years of rich First Nations history is still widely evident in the massive and mysterious boulder effigies scattered across the vast landscape. No one can say for sure which peoples made the effigies. Some human or animal figures tell of personal or tribal tragedies. Some mark the resting place of important tribal members. Some mark battles. Some are unexplainable. The combination of topography and ranchers saved the sites; the same combination protects them still."

An excerpt from Aust's General Store in Big Muddy: "The Big Muddy is full of canyons and gulches that provided good concealment and ideal places for headquarters of gangs of horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and outlaws. Many local ranchers had to turn an eye to incidents that happened on their land so they could stay in business. There were two major gangs operating in the area, The Henry Yeuch (alias Dutch Henry) and the Nelson Jones (alias Sam Kelly) gang. Cassidy and other members of the Wild Bunch were amazingly successful in eluding the law. One key to their success was the friendships they cultivated with local ranchers that were willing to pasture their horses, give or sell them supplies, keep quiet when lawmen sought information."

And from Virtual Saskatchewan: "One of the most notorious places in North America at the turn of the 20th Century was northern Montana. In Valley County, where the wave of economic expansion into the American Midwest came crashing into the badlands, rustlers and robbers enjoyed a tempting combination of prime pickings and good hideouts. And if things got too hot in Montana, it was a short ride to safe haven on the north side of 'the line' in Canada. Safe haven, that is, if the pursuers were U.S. lawmen. . ."