Canada. The Confederacy signed a protocol agreement with the Government of Alberta and the Alberta-Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations Relationship Agreement in July 2022 which provides for quarterly meetings with the minister of Indigenous relations and yearly meetings with the premier of Alberta. the Confederacy includes 16 member bands, including all bands party to Treaty 6 with reserves in Alberta but two (the exceptions being the Saddle Lake Cree and the Onion Lake Cree Nation). Grand chiefs of the Confederacy The grand chief serves as the primary spokesperson for the Confederacy in the media and represents the member nations in certain political fora. Grand chiefs serve a one-year term roughly corresponding to the calendar year, and can be re-appointed. They are generally already serving as chief of one of the 17 member nations; however, Littlechild was an exception, as he was not the chief of his own band at the time he was grand chief. 2023: Leonard Standingontheroad (Chief of Montana First Nation) 2022: George Arcand Jr. (Chief of Alexander First Nation) 2021: (interim) Greg Desjarlais (Chief of Frog Lake First Nations) 2021: Vernon Watchmaker (Chief of Kehewin Cree Nation) 2020: William (Billy) Morin (Chief of Enoch Cree Nation) 2017, 2018, 2019: Wilton Littlechild (not then sitting as a chief, but was a former member of parliament and commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada) 2016 (interim) Randy Ermineskin (Chief of Ermineskin Cree Nation) 2016 Tony Alexis (Chief of Alexis Nakota Sioux) 2015 Bernice Martial (Chief of Cold Lake First Nations, first woman grand chief) 2014 Craig Makinaw 2005 Eddy Makokis Background Treaty 6 was signed in August 1876 as an agreement between the Canadian Crown and the Plains and Woods Cree, Assiniboine, and other band governments at Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt. Signatories included Alexander Morris, Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories, James McKay, Manitoba's Minister of Agriculture, and W.J. Christie, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Chief Mistawasis and Chief Ahtahkakoop represented the Carlton Cree. Colonel James Walker had also been instrumental in negotiating the treaty. Prior to the near extinction of the American bison or buffalo in the late nineteenth century as waves of non-Indigenous immigrants arrived on the American frontier, traditional bison hunting was the way of life of the Plains Indians peoples, whose traditional lands spanned the North American great bison belt. Bison were the cultural symbol of these tribes—providing