From the archives: The hanging question; What if Riel had been spared?

This story was first published on Nov. 14, 1992, in the Montreal Gazette.
LOUIS RIEL was neither born in Montreal, nor rose to prominence here, nor died here. Yet you would scarcely have known it from the intense passions his life – and especially his death on Nov. 16, 1885 – aroused among the people of this city.
On Aug. 1, 1885, in a courtroom in faraway Regina, Riel was sentenced to hang for high treason. In March, he had set up a provisional government in Batoche, Sask., in defia