Portrait of a Portrait

This is a colour photograph of my wife’s maternal great grandfather. All that is known is that the photo was taken in 1885, and it was hand coloured by the photographer or his assistant whose illegible name is inscribed on the lower right (see extra).
To those interested in history it poses many questions. 1885 was a significant year in Canadian history. A rebellion was brewing in what is now Saskatchewan and the fledging Canadian Army was sent from Ontario, over 2500 km., on the nearly completed national railway, the CPR, in late winter; its first military action.
Is the date of the photo a coincidence?
Or, does it commemorate his participation in the North-West Rebellion?
If he was a participant-
He would have been one of the first travelers in the CPR.
He would have suffered from hypothermia, and possible frostbite, walking across a frozen Georgian Bay, where the railway had yet to be completed.
He participated in a conflict in which a machine gun, a Gatling Gun, was used for the first time.

We will never know for sure.