Chiefs Mistawasis and Ahtahkakoop persuaded other delegates at the Treaty discussion at Fort Carlton to sign the treaty. Their main argument was that there was no better alternative, and that the incoming flood of white settlers would continue.
Mistawasis spoke at Fort Carlton that,
"I have heard my brothers speak, complaining of the hardships endured by our people. Some have bewailed the poverty and suffering that has come to Indians because of the destruction of the buffalo as the chief source of our living, the loss of the ancient glory of our forefathers; and with all that I agree, in the silence of my teepee and on the broad prairies where once our fathers could not pass for the great number of those animals that blocked their way; and even in our day, we have had to choose carefully our campground for fear of being trampled in our teepees. With all these things, I think and feel intensely the sorrow my brothers express.
I speak directly to Poundmaker and The Badger and those others who object to signing this treaty. Have you anything better to offer our people? I ask, again, can you suggest any-thing that will bring these things back for tomorrow and all the tomorrows that face our people?
I for one think that the Great White Queen Mother has offered us a way of life when the buffalo are no more. Gone they will be before many snows have come to cover our heads or graves if such should be." (Erasmus, Buffalo Days, 246-7)
Erasmus, Peter. Buffalo Days and Nights. Edited by Irene Spry. Reprint Calgary: Glenbow Alberta Institute/Fifth House, 1999. 246-250.