Plains Indian culture before European contact was based on hunting, fishing, gathering and inter-tribal trading. The harsh temperate climate restricted agriculture while the use of natural food plants depended on the specific area and the customs of the various tribes. The plains people travelled on foot and used dog travois until the early 18th century when the horse was reintroduced to the prairies. Indian technology included the bow and arrow, spears, snares and, most importantly, buffalo pounds and buffalo jumps. Buffalo, deer and elk were plentiful, and hence they were a source of clothing. Animal hide shelters (tipis) were easily constructed and portable. The social groupings generally consisted of small extended families or bands of 50 to 100 members, guided by men recognized for their skills in hunting, oratory, religion or medicine. It was a difficult life closely attuned to the seasonal environment. Families and bands travelled great distances on hunting and trading expeditions.

The stereotypic eagle-fathered plains Indian warrior is often associated with the Sioux, originally a woodlands people inhabiting the forests of central Canada and north-eastern United States. When they migrated onto the plains they became skillful nomadic bison hunters. The Sioux tribes eventually dominated the headwaters of the Mississippi, Minnesota, and Missouri rivers. A northern group, before European contact, branched off, becoming identified as the Assiniboine, an Ojibwa term referring to their practice of boiling food by dropping heated rocks into water. Living along the length of the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan river systems, the Assiniboine remained strong allies of the Cree throughout the fur trade era. Together they became the middlemen in trading European goods to distant tribes. Later they became noted for their production of pemmican, the staple food for voyageurs and trading post employees. From an estimated population of 10,000 in the late 18th century, the Assiniboine were reduced to less than 3,000 within 100 years because of smallpox and other contagious diseases.

The Rocky Mountain Stoneys constitute another branch of the Sioux-Assiboine tribes. As they do today, they resided along the foothills from Chief Mountain in Montana to the Athabasca river in jasper National Park. Anthropologists speculate that the Stoney bands—namely the Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley bands residing on the Morley reserve west of Calgary, and Paul's and Alexis bands west of Edmonton—possibly migrated west along the Saskatchewan river system as the fur trade expanded into the interior plains area. Stoney oral tradition recounts that some Stoney families have lived in the foothills since time immemorial; however, other elders tell of Stoney families fleeing the central plains of Montana to the mountain foothills in order to escape the smallpox epidemics (recorded in the fur trade records as occurring around 1740, 1781 and 1830). Father de Smet, the Roman Catholic missionary travelling through the Bow Valley in 1840, reported that the Stoneys had separated from the Plains Assiniboine about 1790. These foothillsplains people hunted bison as well as other game animals. They traded furs, hides and fresh meat at the HBC posts at Rocky Mountain House and Edmonton House. They became invaluable guides to early explorers such as Capt. John Palliser and James Hector (1858–60), while assisting surveyors for the C.P.R. and Geological Survey of Canada. Converted to Methodism by Robert Rundle (1811–1896) in the 1840s, the Stoneys settled on their homelands near the Morleyville Methodist Mission established in 1873 by George and John McDougall along the Bow river. After signing Treaty No. 7 in 1877, the Stoney Nation continued to claim additional reserve lands and jealously preserved their traditional hunting and trapping rights. The Wesley court case of 1930 set a legal precedent for the recognition of hunting treaty rights in Canada. Eventually after years of fruitless petitions and frustrating negotiations, the government granted the Stoneys a 5,000 acre reserve at Bighorn (west of Nordegg) and the tribe purchased another 5,000 acre reserve at Eden Valley (west of Longview). Today the economic base of the people includes hunting, trapping, guiding, ranching, lumbering, handicraft sales and professional employment with their tribal government. As well, the Stoney bands operate commercial enterprises: gas stations, a Co-op store and restaurant, a health clinic, a conference lodge, and a campground. All these economic projects and services to band members have been financed from natural gas royalties which have amounted to millions in annual income.