North-West Mounted Police

[17] Meanwhile, a survey conducted in 1871 by Lieutenant William Butler recommended establishing a mounted force of up to 150 men under a magistrate or commissioner, based along the northern trade routes, leaving the border area as a liminal, ungarrisoned zone.

[18] Colonel Patrick Robertson-Ross conducted another survey in 1872, and recommended an alternative strategy of recruiting a larger force of 550 men who would be tasked to push south into the border region itself and establish law and order there.

[20] He was heavily influenced by the model of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which combined aspects of a traditional military unit with the judicial functions of the magistrates' courts, and believed that the new force should be able to provide a local system of government in otherwise ungoverned areas.

[21] Originally, Macdonald also had wanted to form units of Métis policemen, commanded by white Canadian officers in a similar manner to the British Indian Army, but he was forced to abandon this approach after the Red River Rebellion of 1870 called their loyalty into question.

[24] Macdonald's Conservative government then fell from power as a result of the Pacific Scandal, and was replaced by the Liberal administration of Alexander Mackenzie, who placed more credence on Morris's reports and had his own moral concerns about the whisky trade.

[89] As tensions rose, Irvine, who had replaced Macleod as Commissioner in 1880 after accusations of financial mismanagement, began to mobilize any spare police manpower in Regina, bringing the force up to an operational strength of 562.

[93] Emboldened, some of the Cree leaders, including Poundmaker and Big Bear, now joined the Métis in their revolt, although others continued to tacitly support the government, in part the result of the good relationship the police had built up with them.

[94] The police rapidly abandoned most of their posts along the valley, falling back to more easily defensible locations; Inspector Francis Dickens was forced to flee Fort Pitt with his men on a makeshift boat.

[141] As there were almost no white women on the Prairies, the influx of the male work crews for the railroad together with the mines being opened in the foothills of the Rocky mountains created an immense demand for prostitution, which flourished as a result.

[171][g] In the mining town of Lethbridge, for example, the Alberta Railway and Coal Company locked out its workforce in 1894 during an attempt to cut staff and reduce wages; a team of ten police was deployed to maintain order, in particular any risks posed by eastern European immigrants, and to mediate in the dispute.

[175][h] The mounted police disliked labour agitators and strikers with eastern or southern European backgrounds, but they also had some sympathy for the difficulties faced by ordinary workers, and were often unwilling to actively assist the company owners if there was a risk it might cause disturbances to break out.

[193] The police checked for illegal weapons and prevented the entry of criminals and collected customs duties, while helping protect and guide the flow of migrants, mediating in their disputes and providing practical advice.

[197] The historian Morris Zaslow describes the Yukon as forming a "police state" during this period, and William Morrison has highlighted the force's paternalistic willingness to invent and enforce non-existent laws whenever they considered it necessary.

[198] The police acted efficiently and with probity during the period, largely curbing criminality in the region, although their task was helped by the geography of the Klondike, which made it relatively easy to bar entry to undesirables.

[199] The Klondike gold rush attracted immense worldwide publicity at the time, and the contrast between the relative order of Dawson City in the Yukon vs. the more chaotic and violent situation in Skagway, Alaska caused much comment in the newspapers.

[200] When the Second Boer War broke out in 1899, many members of the mounted police wanted to volunteer to serve in South Africa, motivated by sympathy for the British imperial cause and the strong military tradition within the force.

[222] By the 1890s, a political consensus had emerged in Ottawa that the western provinces should become autonomous and take up responsibility for their own policing; it was therefore time to plan for the closure of the force, which originally had only been intended to be a temporary organization.

[231] Finally, Laurier proposed in 1905 that the mounted police should remain in the new provinces, under contract to the provincial authorities for $75,000 (~$1.97 million in 2023) per year apiece – about one-third of the actual operational cost – a solution which was approved by both sides.

[235] In 1903, a small team of police under Inspector Charles Constantine were sent to Herschel Island to investigate the alleged sexual mistreatment of Inuit women by the transient whaling community there; the decision was also driven by fears that the United States might try to assert sovereignty over the wider Mackenzie Delta.

[242] Patrols pushed up into Baker Lake and along the Coppermine River until, by the end of the decade, the police presence in Hudson Bay had been reduced to a bare minimum, with the force focusing on reaching out into ever more remote areas.

[247] When Canada entered the First World War in 1914, the government became concerned that national security might be threatened, either by immigrants who still sympathized with their home countries in central Europe, or from citizens of the United States with German or Irish backgrounds crossing over the border.

[251] The force investigated rumours of conspiracies associated with the Central Powers, but, since most mounted police did not have links within the relevant ethnic communities, they instead used secret agents and informants to gather intelligence, supported by a few undercover officers.

[267] The police began to recruit new networks of secret agents, whom Perry tasked to investigate "foreign settlements" to identify "the least indication of Bolshevik tendencies and doctrines", and the force embraced new laws allowing for the deportation, without trial, of immigrants suspected of holding extremist views.

[303] Early in the force's history, additional payments were made to officers for successfully collecting customs duties and seizing illegal goods; Superintendent Leif Crozier was paid a bonus of $3,659 in 1886 (approximately $124,081 in 2023), for example.

[321] In the first year of the force, the poorly constructed fort at Swan River drew particular condemnation from senior officers: Commissioner French complained to Ottawa about the "exposure and hardship" that the police detachment were enduring.

[322] Even once the force was properly established, living conditions remained very basic: the forts used wood- and coal-burning stoves for heating and cooking, and were lit by oil lamps and candles, while the constables slept on wooden boards using straw-filled mattresses.

[343] The mounted police's white helmets, forage caps and tight tunics were impractical for work on the plains, and a set of clothes termed "prairie dress" instead evolved unofficially, becoming the dominant style of uniform in the force by 1900.

[344] Prairie dress typically included a buckskin jacket, oilskins for wet weather, and leather leggings, combined with a wide-brimmed felt hat: by the late 1890s, the Stetson was the headgear of choice.

[398] Canadian novels embraced much of this imperial narrative, but also depicted the force as a protector of wider moral authority and order, forming a reassuring, conservative image in the face of contemporary fears of immigrants and social instability.

[402] The popularity of these films finally waned in the 1970s, although this image of the force continued to influence late-20th century television portrayals of the modern RCMP, such as the series Due South which centred on a mounted police constable from the Yukon.