The Mystery of the Bell

REBELLION, MURDER AND MYTH ON THE CANADIAN FRONTIER

This small bell, weighing 20 kilograms, has a secret past.

CBC News follows up on the Bell of Batoche story.

According to legend, this is the bell that was stolen from the church in Batoche, Saskachewan by Canadian soldiers after they’d defeated Louis Riel and his Metis fighters in 1885.

In the next hundred years,  the bell was hidden – buried in a field, submerged in a stream, locked away in a safe – anywhere where it would be kept away from those who wanted it back.  The government was looking for it. The Metis were looking for it.

A century later it was stolen back by Metis militants and kept hidden for another  twenty years as a power struggle over the future of this icon played out.

The Mystery of the Bell is a CBC-TV documentary that follows the journey of the bell through its tumultuous history, including the larger-than-life drama of rebellion and war on the Canadian frontier.

Finally, the mysterious bell appeared this summer in Batoche in a triumphal ceremony celebrated by thousands of Metis from across the country. Correspondents from across Canada were there. It was covered on national news networks as the final chapter in the saga of the Bell of Batoche.

But is this really the Bell of Batoche? What is its secret? The mystery that unfolds is a dramatic detective story that spans the country as we follow a series of clues to reveal the remarkable truth about this bell.

Just as in the classic drama The Maltese Falcon, nothing is as it seems in The Mystery of the Bell.