Here the historical record requires careful handling, because the story of White Bird’s escape from Bear Paw has sometimes been told with a dramatic simplicity that the sources do not quite support.

The NPS Bear Paw Battlefield page describes the outcome plainly: White Bird escaped with about 30 followers during the night of October 4-5 and reached Canada.

Subsequent movements of nimíipuu refugees out of the Bear Paw area and northward across the Medicine Line brought the total number of people who eventually reached Canada to approximately 300.

The EBSCO historical summary describes White Bird escaping with approximately twenty other leaders and two hundred followers.

The Native American Netroots account, citing the record of North-West Mounted Police Superintendent James Walsh, describes Walsh counting 290 Nez Perce refugees among the Lakota at Sitting Bull’s camp in late October, including 90 men and 200 women and children.