Talk:Battle of the Belly River

Dates

To the person who posted this entry, you didn't include the dates of the battle. When did this battle take place? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki-wiki-tiki (talk • contribs) 10 December 2006 17:59

Read it again. The article states it took place 25 October 1870. --Kmsiever 16:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Start

I changed the rating of the article from a stub to a start.McMuff (talk) 03:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Location

The article states the battle took place along the Belly River within present day Lethbridge. The Belly doesn't flow through Lethbridge, it joins the Oldman northwest of the city. It's unclear as to whether the battle took place along the Oldman, within the city or along the Belly, northwest of the city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.186.155.144 (talk) 07:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The Oldman River that flows through Lethbridge in the present day was known at the the time of the battle as the Little Belly River. The battle is named by the sources cited for the name of the river at the time.McMuff (talk) 00:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

General Overview

The article on the Battle of the Belly River is a Canadian history stub about the last major battle between First Nations in Canada. Specifically a battle between roughly 600 members of the Blackfoot Confederacy and a similar sized force of Cree warriors near what is now Lethbridge. While covering the basic aspects of the conflict reasonably well, it is wanting in several areas. It mentions smallpox weakening one of the belligerents but fails to address the extent of the outbreak and how badly it affected their military capability. As well, its description of the battle completely glosses over major elements referring only to "several hours of trading shots" and that the battle quickly ended once the Blackfoot "gained the high ground" no explanation is given to the aspects of the hours long battle or what the "high ground" was that gave the Blackfoot the advantage and won them the battle. It also says that a year after the two First Nations groups made peace but doesn't specify what changed in the relations or how peace was obtained. The article also lacks any photographs of the topic, despite mentioning a public park in Lethbridge commemorating the battle. The park is an important part of the legacy of the battle and pictures of it would show the lasting effects of the conflict. Pictures of the general site of the battle or of Lethbridge today would help show readers what the area looks like now. Also, if possible, a way to more easily convey how the Blackfoot won would be to include pictures of the vague "high ground" so readers can see what gave them the advantage. The complete lack of any photographs hurts the quality of the page and contributes to the sense that the article is not well-rounded. Another deficiency is the article's references. They include two books but neither of them are current, the most recent of them was published in 1977. The third and last reference is a link to the City of Lethbridge website. When the link is followed it arrives on a page stating that the page we are looking for cannot be found that dramatically hurts the integrity of the article. A good method to fixing the article and it's references would be to search for any more recent books on the subject as well as replacing the broken link with a good reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex1840 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a stub article. It is classified as such so people can come and build on it. Your critique here is longer than the actual article itself. Why not build on it instead of pointing out at length its (many) deficiencies? If it's missing details, fill them in! If there are broken links, fix them! If there are newer sources, include them! The article is far from perfect, and frankly the energy you used could have been put to better use improving it.--McMuff (talk) 19:56, 3 October 2012 (UTC)