The heavily armed men surrounded the Sun Dancers in the pre-dawn darkness.

At 4 a.m. on Aug. 18, 1995, with camouflage, painted faces, M-16 rifles and snipers, the group crept through the foliage towards an armed First Nations encampment at Gustafsen Lake in the B.C. Interior, about 270 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

The situation was already tense as the activists occupied part of a remote, privately owned cattle ranch, where they gathered to perform a Sun Dance ceremony in July but then refused to leave, claiming the land as unsurrendered Secwepemc territory.

Alerted by spooked horses, Sun Dance faith keeper Percy Rosette was afraid racist vigilantes were attacking the camp. His concerns stemmed from a past incident where local ranchers allegedly approached the Sun Dancers, cracke

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