The Canadian troops spent their first night at Batoche about one and a half kilometres back from the MΘtis entrenchments. To form a "zareba" the wagons were arranged in a square, and shallow trenches were dug. However posed this scene might be, Peters' camera conveys the squalor, disorder and the mixture of uniform and civilian clothing that an artist might discreetly have ignored. (The term "zareba" was borrowed from the contemporary war in the Sudan, where British troops protected themselves behind "zarebas" of desert thorn bushes.)
