The battle of Alberta has been going on for centuries.
Excerpt of a letter from James Bird at Edmonton Dec.23 1806
..."a Quarrel took place in the latter end of July last between the Blackfoot supported by the Blood Indians and the Southward Indians afsisted by the Stone Indians, each party consisting of about four hundred Men. A Battle was fought in which twenty-eight of the former and three of the latter, are said to have fallen, the Southward Indians were ultimately forced to a precipitate retreat with the lofs of a part of their Horses and Baggage and dispersing in all Quarters to conceal themselves in the Woods leaving their Enemies Masters of the plains from south Branch to Acton house."...
This event causes panic and so from the same letter:
..."One alarm we met with by the way occasion'd by the Men of a French Canoe which had ventured to precede us several days, Near the Elbow of the river we met these returning with the utmost hurry & dismay. they told us that they had met about three hundred Indians (Blackfoot of course) who had killed one of their Companions as he was riding along shore and given long chase to them"..."In a few Days we had the satisfaction of arriving at eighty tents of Stone Indians"..."and discovered that these had unwillingly been the cause of the flight of the Canadians. Their abandoned Companion we found[alive] a few days after."...
But perhaps with good reason. Same letter:
..."At Edmonton I found an Indian lately arrived from whom I had the Mortification to learn that his with three other families amounting in all to twenty-five souls were a few days since surprized by the Blackfeet and totally destroy'd about an hundred Miles from this as they were returning from the plains ignorant of the late Quarrel"...
A journal entry on the same incident
Sept 22, 1806 James Bird at Edmonton House
"Had the pleasure to find Mr [James Peter] Whitford and Men well but the mortification to hear of fresh massacres among the Indians, and Even that an attack on Acton House is threatened. Four tents of South'rd Indians who were returning from the Muddy River Indian Country quite ignorant of the late Quarrel were on a sudden attacked about 100 miles from this, by 2 or 3 hundred blackfeet. two men made their escape but the rest, men women and children were either butchered or taken Slaves."
And it continues
May 13, 1811 James Bird at Edmonton House
"The Muddy river Indian Chiefs have promised not to Molest Mr [Joseph] Howse on his return from the flat head Country: but declared that if they again meet with a White Man going to supply their enemies, they would not only plunder and kill him but that they would make dry meat of his body. This threat they are sufficiently brutal to fufill in its utmost extent for according to the concurring testimony of their own and several other tribes, the Blood Indians, in course of Last summer after Destroying three American settlements in the Mifsifsoury and killing most of the Men, horrid to relate, roasted the body of the principal American and eat it with the most savage Exultation."