Битва при Батоше: Решающее сражение Северо-Западного восстания 1885 года.

1885 decisive battle of the North West Rebellion
Collapse of the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan
|combatant1=Provisional Government of Saskatchewan (Métis)
|combatant2=
|commander1=Gabriel DumontLouis Riel
|commander2=Frederick MiddletonBowen van Straubenzee
|strength1=250 (Métis)
|strength2=916 regulars and militia
|casualties1=Per Middleton
51 dead
173 wounded
Per Vegreville
16 dead20–30 wounded
|casualties2=8 dead46 wounded
Middleton's plan rested on an encirclement strategy: as his main contingent advanced directly against Métis defensive lines, the steamboat Northcote, carrying some of Middleton's troops, would steam past the distracted defenders and unload fifty men at the rear of the town, effectively closing the pincer. However, due to the difficulty of the terrain and Middleton's penchant for prudence, his force lagged behind schedule, and when the Northcote appeared adjacent to the town on 9 May it was spotted by Métis who had not yet come under artillery fire. Their small arms fire did little damage to the armoured ship, but they lowered Batoche's ferry cable, into which the Northcote steamed unsuspectingly, slicing off its masts and smokestacks. Crippled, the ship drifted harmlessly down the South Saskatchewan River and out of the battle.

Ignorant of the Northcote fate, Middleton approached the church at Mission Ridge on the morning of 9 May in order to bring his plan into effect. Some Métis in two houses south of the church began firing at Boulton's Scouts (irregular Canadian cavalry), but artillery was brought up to shell the houses, one of which caught fire. The Métis sharpshooters fled toward the settlement. The troops advanced toward the church. As they approached the church and nearby rectory, they saw some people near those buildings whom they took to be the enemy. Second Lieutenant Arthur L. Howard, a Gatling gun expert on leave from the Connecticut National Guard, fired his Gatling gun at the rectory. Then a white flag was unfurled, Howard's firing stopped, and several priests, nuns, women and children came across the lines. Finding the mission occupied only by civilians, Middleton brought his artillery out onto the ridge and began shelling the town. The soldiers began advancing past the church, and got about half a kilometre before they came under heavy fire from both sides of the trail. The militia immediately took cover. Their enemies, hidden in well constructed rifle pits, were invisible. One trooper later wrote:
"[The militia was] down some distance apart from each other, firing at nothing, making guess shots and hearing the rebel bullets zip all round you, and the everlasting clack as the bullets struck the trees." Canadian advances saw less success but were carefully conducted, keeping casualties to a minimum. A Métis attempt to surround the Canadian lines failed when the brushfires meant to screen the sortie failed to spread. At the end of the day, both sides held their positions at Mission Ridge. But Middleton, shaken by the fierce resistance, ordered the Canadian soldiers to retire to a zareba, a hastily improvised fortification about a mile from the Métis entrenchments, where the troops retired to sleep behind their network of improvised barricades. Later, Father Vegreville's report claimed that the Métis loss was not as high as the Mission first reported to Middleton. Vegreville's report claimed that there were 16 Métis killed and between 20 and 30 wounded during the battle.

Following the battle, it is claimed that several Canadian soldiers from Millbrook, Ontario, seized the bell from the Batoche church and took it back to Ontario as a prize. The fate of the bell became an issue of longstanding controversy, involving several Métis organizations and the provincial governments of Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The Millbrook bell is now identified as the identical Bell of Frog Lake.

In the spring of 2008, Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Christine Tell proclaimed in Duck lake, that "the 125th commemoration, in 2010, of the 1885 Northwest Resistance is an excellent opportunity to tell the story of the prairie Métis and First Nations peoples' struggle with Government forces and how it has shaped Canada today." Batoche, where the Métis Provisional Government had been formed, has been declared a national historic site. Batoche marks the site of Gabriel Dumont's grave site, Albert Caron's House, Batoche school, Batoche cemetery, Letendre store, Gabriel's river crossing, Gardepy's crossing, Batoche crossing, St. Antoine de Padoue Church, Métis rifle pits, and Canadian militia's battle camp.