The North West Mounted Police (NWMP) was created in 1873 to establish law and order in the Canadian West. Alarmed by the lawlessness caused by whiskey traders in southern Alberta, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald sent the NWMP to Fort Whoop-up (near present-day Lethbridge) in 1874, where they immediately put a stop to the whiskey trade.
When a rich gold strike in the Fortymile River country near the Alaska-Yukon Territory border set off a small stampede of gold seekers, the North West Mounted Police were sent North. The Canadian government's concern was three-fold: to protect the Native population from indiscriminate liquor traders (such as those who had operated at trading posts in the south); to maintain some form of order to protect major commercial interests; and to make sure that the region remained Canadian.
The Fortymile River, a tributary of the Yukon River, was named by prospectors because it was 40 miles below the former Hudson's Bay Post of Fort Reliance. Gold was discovered here on Sept. 7, 1886, by a prospector named Howard Franklin, who worked the river bars of the Fortymile and a small tributary stream that was later named for him. Prospectors filed claims in both Canada and Alaska because of uncertainties about the location of the international boundary.
The first mounted police post in the Yukon was constructed at Fortymile, and named for its first superintendent, Charles Constantine. The initial Yukon contingent was just 19 men, although Constantine had requested a force of 50 experienced and sober men of "large and powerful builds."
By mid-1896, the NWMP had been established as sole agents of legitimate authority in the Yukon, with Inspector Constantine acting as customs officer, postmaster, Indian agent, land agent and justice of the peace, as well as registering miners' claims. Constantine is credited with establishing a foundation of Canadian law and authority in this vast Northern frontier that would see the territory through its most challenging time-the Klondike Gold Rush.
The Klondike gold rush began in1896 with a gold strike on Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River, by a miner named George Carmack. A small stampede followed Carmack's discovery that summer, but it was the following year, 1897---when news of the gold strike reached the outside world---that the gold rush truly got started. From the fall of 1897 through 1898, tens of thousands of gold seekers headed for the Klondike gold fields, most entering Canada at Chilkoot Pass and White Pass summits. The NWMP force in the Yukon swelled from 19 men in 1896 to 285 men by November 1898.
Samuel Benfield Steele replaced Constantine in 1898. The new superintendent arrived at the foot of Chilkoot Pass in February, and found thousands of men waiting to pack their supplies over the pass. He immediately stationed permanent detachments at the summits of Chilkoot and White passes, both to maintain law and order and to assert Canadian sovereignty at these 2 international borders.
The remoteness of the Klondike goldfields, and the scarcity and high cost of food and supplies in Dawson City, created desperate conditions for many men arriving in the North. To prevent this, Steele initiated a minimum amount of provisions requirement for those gold seekers entering the Yukon. The North West Mounted Police required anyone entering Canada to have a year's supply of food and equipment.
The one year's outfit for a miner was a daunting list of goods said to weigh a ton and cost about $2,000. It included hundreds of pounds of food; cooking pots, utensils, cups and plates; gold pan, axes, picks and other tools; canvas tent, blankets, candles, soap, lamps and lamp oil; and 2 or more sets of clothing, from woolen socks and boots to mittens and hats.
Steele worked a staggering 19 hours a day at the summit crossings to organize a police force that would uphold the Canadian system of justice. "The whole demeanor of the people changed the moment they crossed the summit. The pistol was packed in the valise and not used. The desperado, if there, had changed his ways; no one feared him."
The North West Mounted Police were bestowed the title of "Royal" by the British Government in 1904 in recognition of their outstanding service to Canada. In 1920, the Royal North West Mounted Police became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, more casually referred to today as the "RCMP."
The mounted police continued to play a memorable role in the development of the Yukon. In the 1940s, the RCMP took over patrolling the newly constructed Alaska Highway, with detachments at Whitehorse, Haines Junction, Teslin and Watson Lake, and the manning of 3 traffic control gates.
From its inception, the North West Mounted Police and then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police captured the public's imagination. Tales of their triumphs and tragedies in bringing law and order to the far North received widespread publicity in North America, helping to create the popular image of the "determined, dauntless and incorruptible Mountie."
The ill-fated North West Mounted Police patrol of 1910-1911 is one of the more tragic stories from their early years in the territories. Inspector Francis J. Fitzgerald and 3 men left Fort McPherson, NWT, on Dec. 21, 1910, carrying mail and dispatches to Dawson City, YT. By Feb. 20, 1911, the men had not yet arrived in Dawson, nearly a month overdue. A search party led by Corporal W.J.D. Dempster was sent to look for the missing patrol. On March 22, 1911, Dempster discovered their frozen bodies only 26 miles from where they had started. Lack of knowledge of the trail, coupled with too few rations, had doomed the 4-man patrol. One of the last entries in Fitzgerald's diary, quoted in Dick North's book "The Lost Patrol," an account of their journey, read: "We have now only 10 pounds of flour and 8 pounds of bacon and some dried fish. My last hope is gone. . . .We have been a week looking for a river to take us over the divide, but there are dozens of rivers, and I am at a loss." Fitzgerald and his men are buried in the Anglican cemetery at Fort McPherson on the Dempster Highway.
Another famous incident is commemorated at Milepost 234.8 on the Dempster Highway, where a short side road leads to a picnic site with an information sign about Albert Johnson, "The Mad Trapper of Rat River." Something of a mystery man, Johnson killed one mounted policeman and wounded another in 2 separate incidents involving complaints that Johnson was tampering with Native trap lines. The ensuing manhunt became famous in the North, as Johnson eluded Mounties for 48 days during the winter of 1931-32. Johnson was killed in a shoot-out on Feb. 17, 1932. He was buried at Aklavik, a community located 36-miles/58 km west of Inuvik by air. Dick North, author of 2 books on Johnson (and also author of "The Lost Patrol"), was quoted in the New York Times (June 3, 1990) as being 95 percent certain that Johnson, whose true identity had not been known, was a Norwegian-American bank robber named Johnny Johnson.
The distinctive red uniform popularly associated with the RCMP---called red serge---is the modern review order of the RCMP. The uniform is unisex and is now worn only at formal occasions. Its predecessor, the Service Order of Dress, was worn in 1897 at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, where the NWMP contingent's appearance left a distinctive impression on London. The red cloth tunic, white gauntlets, blue breeches, black boots, Model 76 Winchester rifle and broad-brimmed felt hat exemplified for many the dash, romance and courage for which the North West Mounted Police were known.
RCMP Staff Sergeant Tom Roy's "Police Beat" has been entertaining and informing Fort Nelson News subscribers for several years. Combining a dry wit with factual reporting, Mountie Tom chronicles the misdemeanors of "boneheads," "dotterels," and other miscreants residing in this small northern British Columbia town.
