The prospect of fatherhood seemed to make Wolfe a more responsible man and prison officials held out the hope that he would renounce his criminal lifestyle. In a letter to Lisa in April 1999, Wolfe wrote: "You know who I am and what I'm about, but that stuff has nothing to do with our relationship. It's something I can't change". In the summer of 1999, Wolfe became a father. Despite his promises to reform, Wolfe was active in smuggling drugs into Stony Mountain, selling cocaine, steroids, heroin, marijuana, and amphetamines. In August 1999, Wolfe was identified as a member of the Indian Posse's ruling "circle" for the first time. On 12 September 1999, he ordered the beating of another prisoner that resulted in the man going to the hospital to be treated for his injuries. As a punishment for all the trouble he was causing in Stony Mountain, he was placed in solitary confinement for months, where he obsessively wrote letters to Lisa and to his brother. In his letters to Richard, he sounded disenchanted with the Indian Posse, which he complained was divided by feuds and intrigue. Wolfe stated sharply that recruiting young people from broken homes imposed liabilities as wrote in his usual vulgar fashion that the principle problem with the gang was "too many fucked up people recruiting fucked up people". On 16 February 2000, Wolfe was transferred to the
Saskatchewan Penitentiary as he was considered to be a trouble-maker at Stony Mountain. In a letter to Lisa, he wrote: "It's cold in these cells, like someone died in them. The House of Misery is what we call this place. There's someone getting it [stabbed or beaten] here everyday. Can't even shower without the pigs [guards] watching". Wolfe complained the prison was full of mice that crawled over him while he tried to sleep. In a letter to Lisa, he promised her: "I'm going to give our son something that I never had when I was small. A dad. I know how it is without a dad and it wasn't good". In another letter, he wrote "they say girls like bad guys more than good guys but I can say I'm the bad guy". In a letter to Richard, he wrote he had two girlfriends on the side and "I just hope my son's mom doesn't find out". Wolfe was an ardent fan of the rapper
Tupac Shakur, whose music he adored, and Shakur's Black Power rapping inspired Wolfe to try his hand at Red Power rapping. Like many other Red Power activists, Wolfe was greatly influenced by Black Power ideologies, which he mostly picked up via the rap songs that he loved. Wolfe detested Canada where he described in letters to Richard as an oppressive state and he made a point of always placing his stamps on his letters upside down to show his contempt for Canada. Alongside his contempt for Canada was a strong anti-white racism as he often wrote that he hated all white people. In one of his letters to his brother, Wolfe wrote: "I always put a stamp upside down. It's like, Canada Who? Canada Where? Fuck Canada! We were here first. Fuck their society. I say fuck the white people". Wolfe routinely used racial slurs in his letters to his brother as he asked Richard in one letter about prisons in eastern Canada "are there a lot of honkeys over that way or a lot of niggers?" In Wolfe's ideology, Canada was an illegal "settler colonist" state that occupied land that rightfully belonged to the First Nations peoples, and as such Canadian society itself was criminal to its very core while he was not bound by any of the laws of Canada. Wolfe did not see himself as a criminal, but rather as a heroic "street soldier" who was nobly resisting the criminal "settler colonist" Canadian state. The concept of the "street soldier" was central to Wolfe's ideology as he saw the world as a cruel, merciless place dominated by a Darwinian struggle for survival, and that Canadian society was so systematically racist that First Nations peoples needed "street soldiers" such as the Indian Posse to defend themselves. In one of his poems written about a white man, Jeff Giles, killed while resisting an Indian Posse robbery in early 2000, Wolfe wrote: "Because I cause destruction To Your Society/With no sympathy/Fuck your public heroes/Giles who?/pump on his chest/As I sit here and laugh with mad with joy/He never knew the meaning of an AR". In another of his poems, Wolfe wrote: "Stop taking our rights/Stop taking our land/Stop taking our humanity/Stop taking our lives/Civilization is isolation/No tradition in urban cities/We trying to make it work/Hurt is all we feel and see/Pain is all we have". In the spring of 2000, Wolfe became the chairman of the Native Brotherhood Organization, which allowed him an important role in the prison life. Wolfe tried to resume his schooling with the aim of obtaining his high school diploma. He had an intense hatred of the Manitoba Warriors and when he learned that one of his cousins had joined the Warriors he wrote to Richard: "He went with the Warriors, so fuck him. Treat him like a bitch now". In May 2000, he was present when a Manitoba Warrior was stabbed, an action that he either committed himself or ordered, but he was not charged when the victim refused to testify against him. In January 2001, Wolfe was returned to Stony Mountain, only to be expelled on 15 March 2001 as he became involved in a number of violent incidents with imprisoned members of the Manitoba Warriors, most notably a brawl in the prison washroom. Wolfe was angry about being returned to
Saskatchewan Penitentiary as it meant no more visits with his son. Upon his return to Prince Albert, Wolfe became obsessed with
The Sopranos TV show while showing an interest in First Nations spirituality. Wolfe also became interested in history and his cell was decorated with photographs of 19th century native leaders such as
Big Bear,
Crazy Horse, and
Sitting Bull. Wolfe became very much interested in the
Battle of Little Bighorn, where in 1876 a force of Lakota, under the leadership of
Crazy Horse, annihilated the
7th Cavalry Regiment of United States Army cavalry, under the command of General
George Armstrong Custer, as an example of First Nations resistance to white settlement. The
Battle of Cut Knife in 1885 where a force of Cree warriors, under the command
Poundmaker, defeated the Canadian militia and the North-West Mounted Police, under the command of Sir
William Otter, which might have been a more apt battle for Wolfe, did not inspire the same level of interest in him because no Hollywood films had been made about that battle, unlike the Battle of Little Bighorn. Wolfe started to attend sweat lodges and expressed the wish to learn Cree. He expressed much anger when he learned that a First Nations elder who visited the prison to serve as a counsellor was instead receiving fellatio from the prisoners, leading Wolfe to complain "they're supposed to be helping us, not getting us to suck them off". Wolfe, committed to the image of being a "strong" warrior type, always denied that he was sexually abused as he insisted he was too strong to be abused. However, in one of his poems he wrote in prison he declared: "All I ask for is help/But no-one is there/For I have been abused/In all kinds of ways/I cry and hide my emotions/From everyone and everywhere/They beat me, they raped me/Burned me/That is only some of the things/They did to torture me". In July 2001, Wolfe was the prime suspect behind the beating and stabbing of a prisoner who crossed the Indian Posse, but he was not charged. In 2001, Creeley stopped her substance abuse and drinking and started to work as a counsellor to troubled First Nations youth. She started to press for her sons to reform. Upon learning that he was going to be transferred to Renous prison in New Brunswick which had few Indian Posse members in a bid to curb his trouble-making, Wolfe tried to escape. In October 2001, Wolfe was transferred to the
Atlantic Institution in Renous. As Wolfe, along with two others, were the only Indian Posse prisoners at the Atlantic Institution, he was frequently beaten up by the more numerous Manitoba Warriors imprisoned at the same institution. A Manitoba Warrior smashed Wolfe's head into the cement wall so violently that he had to be hospitalized. For his own protection, Wolfe was placed in segregation for six months. In April 2002, Wolfe was transferred to the Donnacona Institution outside of Quebec City. In 2003, he was moved to the Cowansville Institution. Wolfe received a letter from a woman who complained about the "pretty disgusting" way that the Indian Posse treated women who went on to tell him "you guys were great. These new guys are jerks...The seniors need to step in, show these new young guys the proper way of things!". From his cell, Wolfe ordered the murder of another Indian Posse member, Gene Malcom, who was shot in the head on 26 September 2003, but survived. Despite his dislike of white people, at Cowansville, Wolfe became a protégé of
Gerald Matticks, the leader of the
West End Gang of Montreal. Matticks came from an Irish family in Montreal and had grown up in extreme poverty. As a man who came from a "minority within a minority" as Montreal has a French-Canadian majority while its substantial English-speaking minority is of mostly British extraction, Matticks had a similar sense of exclusion felt by Wolfe. Matticks is illiterate and Wolfe read and wrote letters for him. Wolfe wrote in a letter to his brother about Matticks: "running the fucking shit yet he couldn't read or write". Wolfe described Matticks as the most intelligent and ablest gangster he ever met. Matticks served as a surrogate father to Wolfe who recounted to him tales of how the West End Gang had fought off the Mafia to take control of the Port of Montreal. Under the influence of Matticks, Wolfe became a calmer man. From October 2003 to July 2004, there were no incidents involving Wolfe at prison, and in the spring of 2004 a prison official wrote about the "wholly different picture" of Wolfe who had become a model inmate. On 14 July 2004, Wolfe was released on parole due to good behavior. At the time of his release, Wolfe had $209 on his person and no drivers' license (he always failed his driving tests), no health card and no Indian status card. Wolfe worked briefly as a part-time general labourer at Silverado Demolition in Regina, but resigned when a time conflict emerged with a course he was taking. Wolfe's parole officer, James Squire, wrote: "Daniel's overall attitude to the criminal justice system and conventional institutions was adversarial to say the least. He openly admits to having had an "Us versus Them" attitude towards the police and other such authority figures and generally saw society as being dominated by white systems governed by white rules that made the white richer and the Indian suffer...Daniel readily admits to feeling that he had no legitimate ways of making a living, so crime became a full time job as a means to attain food, clothing and a place to stay". Squire believed that a course Wolfe had taken in Cree religion in prison had helped him, and learning the "old ways" had made Wolfe into a better man. In October 2004, Wolfe moved in with his mother at the Okanese reserve. Creely as a reformed woman was determined to put a stop to Wolfe's substance abuse and wanted him to abide by his parole conditions. At Okanese, Wolfe worked as a rancher and his new parole officer, Sandra Lavalley, described him as a changed man who wanted to be a good father to his son. After a New Year's Party on 1 January 2005, Wolfe started to engage in substance abuse again to such an extent that his mother reported him to Lavalley. On 25 January 2005, Creely and Lavalley confronted Wolfe about his substance abuse and warned him that he would go back to prison if he did not seek help. Wolfe broke into in one of his usual rages and stated that he did not want to be treated like a child. Finally, Wolfe admitted that he had resumed his substance abuse, and promised to stop in exchange for not being sent back to prison. On 9 June 2005, Lavalley confronted Wolfe with evidence that he had broken his promise and started substance abuse again, along with evidence that he was having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Lavalley informed him that he would be going back to prison for his parole violations. Wolfe started that he needed to pack his possessions before returning to prison, but instead fled. After spending two weeks in hiding, Wolfe returned to Winnipeg. He did not seek to maintain contact with his 15 year old girlfriend, Shenoa, who was three months' pregnant with his child. In his letters to his brother, Wolfe described Winnipeg as far worse than the city he had known as a child writing "it's crazy" as prostitution and drug abuse were more rampant than it had been in the 1980s-1990s. Wolfe was approached by
Michael Sandham, the president of the Winnipeg chapter of the Bandidos with an offer to have the Indian Posse join the Bandidos, an offer that Wolfe rejected out of hand, not the least was because he did not want to be an outlaw biker and certainly not subordinate to Sandham. Wolfe resumed working as a drug dealer, but was brought down when his business partner was arrested, which led the police to him. In September 2005, Wolfe was sent back to Stony Mountain prison. The Indian Posse faction at Stony Mountain was riddled with intrigue and feuds. On 13 April 2004, one of the leaders held at Stony Mountain, Brad Maytwayashing, had been beaten up and expelled from the gang, an action that Wolfe had approved of. One of the Indian Posse leaders who had beaten Maywayashing was Sheldon McKay, a member of the ruling circle (council). As a teenager, McKay had killed his girlfriend's mother by slashing her throat and leaving her to bleed to death. In another incident shortly after his release from prison in 1999 McKay had beaten to death Adrian Bruyere, a member of a rival gang, the Nine-O's, by kicking in his head. Detective James Jewell of the Winnipeg police who had arrested McKay for Bruyere's murder called him the "personification of evil". McKay was an intriguer who sought total control of the Indian Posse and planned to eliminate the other leaders. Travis Personius, an Indian Posse member who served as McKay's bodyguard in prison recalled that McKay would strike his followers with his fists to show his power as he knew that they would never dare to strike back, saying of him: "He was an asshole". Kim, a First Nations woman who worked as a prison counsellor, described Wolfe as a much better behaved inmate than the usual Indian Posse prisoner, saying: "he was a very compassionate guy". Kim stated that despite their superficial friendship that there was much tension between McKay and Wolfe as McKay was jealous of Wolfe's popularity. ==The McKay murder==