By RUTH STAINER, REPORTER | DAILY MAIL
King Charles met with First Nation leaders from Saskatchewan for a historic private meeting at Buckingham Palace today.
The seven Treaty 6 leaders travelled to London for the private audience after formally inviting the monarch to the 150th anniversary of the treaty’s signing in Fort Carlton, Canada.
Images of Charles meeting and shaking hands with the delegation of chiefs serve as a poignant moment for the members, who have long been campaigning for a royal meeting and are hopeful for the King’s attendance in August.
Ahead of the meeting, Chief Larry Ahenakew of Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation said that he first wrote to the King in November 2024 and in February 2025 before receiving a response in December.
He told CBC News: ‘It’s going to be exciting for all of us,’ Ahenakew said. ‘First time in Europe, myself.’
The leaders, who had hoped to present the King with a personalised invitation to the anniversary event, also planned to gift the King beaded moccasins ‘rooted with love and prayers for the future generation’.
The visit, which Ahenakew described as ‘historic’, has been supported by by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations and the Assembly of First Nations.
During the private audience, the King also welcomed an 105-year-old Second World War Mosquito Bomber to Buckingham Palace and presented him with a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell is the last surviving bomber pilot to have flown the de Havilland Mosquito aircraft during the conflict.
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King Charles met with First Nation leaders from Saskatchewan for a historic private meeting at Buckingham Palace today (pictured)
Images of Charles meeting and shaking hands with the delegation of chiefs serve as a poignant moment for the members, who have long been campaigning for a royal meeting and are hopeful for the King’s attendance in August. Pictured: Charles and Grand Chief Joey Pete
During their meeting at the Palace, the pair shook hands and chatted, while the heroic veteran also gave His Majesty a copy of his memoir, Bloody Dangerous.
His book recounts the extraordinary story of his heroic wartime service for the first time and what it was like to fly a Mosquito, known as the ‘wooden wonder’ for being mostly constructed of wood, during 50 raids over Germany including 13 to Berlin.
When asked in the book what would happen if the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines failed on take-off, the commander replied in stark terms: ‘You die like an officer and a gentleman.’
Mr Bell also revealed that, rather than carrying a teddy bear as a mascot on his death-defying bombing raids over Nazi Germany, he took along a Smith & Wesson revolver with 20 rounds of ammunition in case he was shot down.
Mr Bell, whose full title is Flt/Lt (Ret’d) Colin S Bell DFC AE FRICS IRRV(Hons) RAF (Ret’d) flew for 608 & 162 Squadrons, part of the Pathfinder Group – an elite, hand-picked bunch of the RAF’s most skilled pilots and navigators.
The Pathfinders were tasked with flying bombs deep into enemy territory and marking targets for larger, more vulnerable bomber formations to increase their accuracy.
Mr Bell, who now lives in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and his navigator were part of the Light Night Striking Force which carried out nuisance raids on cities all over Germany forcing workers down into air raid shelters.
He and his fellow pilots were aided by cutting-edge navigational technologies of the time, which in the post-war era paved the way for safe commercial air travel.
The leaders, who had hoped to present the King with a personalised invitation to the anniversary event, also planned to gift the King beaded moccasins ‘rooted with love and prayers for the future generation’
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During the private audience, the King also welcomed Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, an 105-year-old Second World War Mosquito Bomber, and presented him with a Distinguished Flying Cross
The King presented Mr Bell, who served with the RAF’s 608 Squadron in the Light Night Striking Force, with the citation to his Distinguished Flying Cross, which was originally awarded to him for his actions by Charles’s grandfather King George VI in 1945.
The Distinguished Flying Cross is given for ‘acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty while flying in active operations against the enemy’ to personnel of the Royal Air Force and other services.
Mr Bell’s final raid, over Berlin, took place in March 1945, just before his 24th birthday. Two days later the very Mosquito he had flown in was shot down and both crew members were killed.
In his incredible memoir, he also addressed recent criticism of Bomber Command’s devastating attacks on German cities like Dresden, which hit civilians as well as military targets.
He wrote: ‘There is certainly an argument to be had about this, but I do often wonder how that argument would go if we had lost the war.
‘People might be expressing reservations about living as slave labourers under a Nazi regime, with concentration camps set up in every city for its opponents.
‘So, when people say, “What about Dresden?” I reply that Dresden was indeed horrific. But so too was the blitzing of London, Coventry, Plymouth, Exeter, Liverpool and Southampton, to name but a few.’
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