“A really interesting read.” -- Keith Carlson, author of The Power of Place, The Problem of Time

Born the son of a Wyandot Chief in Kansas in 1849, Irwin Mudeater was one of the last great frontiersmen of the old American West.

Hired to run wagon trains heading to Santa Fe, he fought off “Indian attacks,” was caught up in the Civil War, drove a stagecoach, and lived the life of a plainsman on the lawless frontier. Most of all, he was a buffalo hunter—killing as many as 126 in one day.

In 1882, Mudeater moved to Canada, adopted the name Robert Armstrong, and portrayed himself as white. He came into the service of General Middleton, and, shortly after the fall of Batoche, played the lead role in bringing the fugitive Métis leader, Louis Riel, into custody.

Mudeater attempts to resolve the opposing stories of Riel’s surrender or capture, scrutinizes the sensational incidents in Armstrong/Mudeater’s life, and, with the inclusion of his unpublished memoir, allows this consummate story teller to speak in his own voice.

John D. Pihach is the author of Ukrainian Genealogy and lives in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

John D. Pihach's profile page

"The story of how Mudeater became Armstrong sheds light on a key chapter in Canadian history during the country's sesquicentennial, as the country grapples with so many of the colonial legacies and questions of identity that Armstrong, or Mudeater, represented." -- The Globe and Mail

"A depiction of the rollicking realities of life in the West and a disturbing reminder of the decimation of the buffalo herds and the subjugation of native tribes."

"...offers a very valuable glimpse into the life and mind of one elderly veteran of the American frontier." -- Montana: The Magazine of Western History