Food rations were among the promises of Treaty 7, an 1877 agreement between Canada and several First Nations, including the Siksika Nation. Brymner would have witnessed severe hunger during his visit to the Siksika Nation Reserve as the local Indian agent was limiting rations in an effort to reduce costs. In a speech made in July 1886, the Siksika leader, Isapo-Muxika (then called Crowfoot in the Canadian media), spoke of the inadequacy of the rations and the risks of starvation, declaring that “he and his chiefs feared for their children, that food would not be given them.” Brymner had met Isapo-Muxika only weeks earlier.   Brymner’s motivations for the work are unknown, though he certainly understood the politics of his subject. Today the work is an important reminder of terrible colonial betrayal and the Canadian government’s use of famine as a weapon to enforce the assimilation of Indigenous peoples.   This Spotlight is excerpted from William Brymner: Life & Work by Jocelyn Anderson.