The Lost Reserve

An unprecedented look inside a 150 year-long legal battle for independence, land, and justice

In 1874, Chief Chacachas entered a sacred covenant with the Government of Canada by signing Treaty 4 at Fort Qu’Appelle, securing reserve lands for his people at the Crooked Lakes in Southeast Saskatchewan. Only seven years later, the Department of Indian Affairs forcibly displaced Chacachas members onto a joint reserve, amalgamating them into the Ochapowace Band and erasing their identity as an independent band.

The Lost Reserve chronicles the Chacachas Treaty Nation’s unwavering decades-long struggle to reclaim their stolen lands. From early efforts to seek redress in the 1930s, to organizing in the 1970s, to a more-than-twenty-year-long court case culminating in a 2020 judgment affirming the continued existence of the Chacachas Treaty Nation, the book reveals the emotional and financial toll of seeking justice in a system designed to stall reconciliation. While the 2020 court ruling restored their legal identity, the battle isn’t over—the Chacachas remain in an administrative limbo without reserve lands. Drawing from archival records, legal documents, oral histories from Chacachas Elders, and personal testimonies, the book also includes rare commentary from the judge who presided over the case, revealing the inner workings of the kind of legal battle that is often fought in silence for fear of retribution.

Written in partnership between the Chacachas Treaty Nation and an expert historian, and featuring a foreword from Chief Charlie Bear, The Lost Reserve is both a history and a reclamation—a Nation telling their own story of resilience and resistance. It is a story all too familiar for Indigenous communities everywhere, for whom the legacy of settler colonialism is far from over.