Background in 1870 The NWMP was created due to the expansion of the newly formed Dominion of
Canada into the
NWT during the 1870s. The Dominion had been formed in 1867 by the
confederation of the British colonies of
Canada,
Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick, but the extensive lands to the north-west known as
Rupert's Land remained governed by the
Hudson's Bay Company as a proprietary colony. The new Dominion
government was keen to expand westwards, in part due to fears that the United States might annex the region. It agreed to purchase the company's lands in exchange for £300,000 and various grants of land, adding around of territory to the Dominion in 1870. The NWT varied geographically from the extreme conditions of the far north, through to the edges of the
Great Plains in the south, covered by flat, semi-arid grasslands. A rocky area known as
the Shield, which was unsuitable for
arable farming, had formed a natural barrier to European colonists gradually spreading across from the eastern colonies. As a result, the territories remained thinly populated, with only around 150,000
First Nations,
Inuit and occasional small groups of Europeans, and more substantial communities of around 12,000
Métis settled in the
Red River valley of
Manitoba and a further 8,500 European settlers in the colony of
British Columbia. Surveys referred to the territories as the "Wild North Land" and the "Great Lone Land". The Canadian border along the southern edge of
Alberta was occupied by the
Blackfoot Confederacy, a First Nation whose economy was based on hunting
bison. The Blackfoot had suffered badly from
smallpox, and were under increasing pressure from rival groups of
Sioux and
Piegans that had crossed into Canada, fleeing the expansion of the United States military across the southern plains. Although the region remained relatively safe, there was no civil government, and military explorers highlighted the "lawlessness" and lack of "security for life or property" that resulted from the absence of a formal justice system. In 1869, the government of
John A. Macdonald, made plans to create a 200-strong mounted police force to maintain order along the border; such a force, he thought, would enable the colonization of the region and be much cheaper than deploying regular militia units for the task. The implementation of this proposal was delayed, however, first by the
rebellion of the Métis, and then by the threat of a
Fenian invasion. 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. 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. At this point, Macdonald appears to have intended to create a force of mounted police to watch "the frontier from Manitoba to the foot of the Rocky Mountains", probably with its headquarters in
Winnipeg. 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. 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. In June 1873, around 30 members of the
Assiniboine First Nation were killed in the
Cypress Hills Massacre, creating a national furore. In response, Macdonald used a
Privy Council order to enact the new legislation, formally creating the NWMP with the intention of mobilizing the force and deploying it early the next year. A report then arrived from
Alexander Morris, the
Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories, blaming the massacre on the activities of whisky traders at
Fort Whoop-Up; Morris predicted that if action was not taken immediately, there would be a major uprising by the First Nations across the region, into which the United States might choose to intervene. Macdonald was not entirely convinced by the governor's analysis, but nonetheless he agreed to recruit 150 men and send them west to
Lower Fort Garry before winter weather blocked the route. These worries were amplified by calls from
Washington for Ottawa to secure the frontier and so prevent
American Indians from purchasing whisky in Canada. Mackenzie initially suggested sending a joint Canadian-United States military expedition, but, after the
Governor General and others noted the serious implications of inviting the
United States Army to deploy into Canadian territory, he instead agreed to deploy the new mounted police to carry out the operation. Another 150 men were recruited in eastern Canada and sent west by rail through the United States to rendezvous with the first part of the force at
Fort Dufferin.
March West The mounted police's deployment onto the plains in 1874 became known as the "March West". The commissioner of the new force, Colonel
George French, was ordered to proceed west from Fort Dufferin to deal with what the authorities described as the "band of desperadoes" around Fort Whoop-Up, before then dispersing his force to establish police posts stretching across the territories. From Fort Dufferin, French could have simply traced the southern line of the frontier, following a well-established trail created two years before by the
British and United States Boundary Commission. Lieutenant Governor Morris disagreed with this approach, arguing that it might encourage an attack by the Sioux, who he believed were gathering in the United States to attack across the border, and urged the government to send the police via a more northerly route. The 275-strong expedition was divided into six divisions, supported by 310 horses, 143 draught oxen and 187
Red River carts and wagons, in all stretching out along the track. The force took two 9-pounder (4 kg) guns and two
mortars for additional protection, cattle for food, and
mowing machines to make hay. French had negotiated that the expedition be accompanied by
Henri Julien, a journalist whom the commissioner hoped would write a positive account of the new force. The expedition made slow time along the boundary trail, progressing only a day at most. The police were already travelling under unpleasant and arduous conditions, made more difficult by the teamsters having little experience and their horses being unsuitable for draught work. The police had no water bottles and soon both their food and water ran out; as the weather worsened, their horses began to die. When the force arrived at what they thought was Fort Whoop-Up at the junction of the
Bow and
South Saskatchewan rivers on September 10, there was nothing to be seen, as the fort was in fact around away. The police had expected the area to contain good grazing for their horses but it was barren and treeless. French was forced to abandon the plan to head to Whoop-Up and instead travelled south towards the border, where supplies could be purchased from the United States. Yet more horses died from the cold and hunger, and many of the men were barefoot and in rags by the time they arrived, having travelled a total of nearly . After resupplying, French led some of his force back east, leaving Assistant Commissioner
James Macleod to advance on Fort Whoop-Up with the three remaining divisions, approximately 150 men. When the police reached the fort on October 9, they were prepared for a confrontation, but the whisky traders were aware that they were approaching and had long since moved on. The force received new orders from Ottawa to garrison the area and settled down to build
Fort Macleod on an island in Old Man's River. Nonetheless, it rapidly became portrayed by the force as epic story of bravery, endurance and determination.
Early years (1874–1895) Relations with First Nations First Nation at
Fort Calgary, 1878 With the arrival of the mounted police, the whisky trade around Fort Macleod collapsed, and the traders shifted into legitimate projects or moved elsewhere. The Blackfoot welcomed the arrival of the police and their leader,
Crowfoot, promoted a policy of co-operation. After enduring a difficult winter with only limited supplies, the force broke up their main command, some remaining at Fort Macleod, with others establishing forts at Dufferin,
Swan River, Edmonton, Winnipeg and
Ellice, with
Walsh and
Calgary following soon after. Macdonald's newly returned Conservative government was critical of the way that the Liberals had stood up the force, ordering an inspection in 1875 that concluded that "for a newly-raised force, hastily enrolled and equipped, it is in very fair order", but recommended a variety of improvements, including to the quality of the commissioned officers. Commissioner French was forced to resign the following year, and was replaced by James Macleod. Meanwhile, the frontier was changing rapidly, with large cattle
ranches being established across the Canadian plains. The government also introduced a new Indian Policy, seeking to sign treaties with the First Nations, establish
reserves and a system of annuities, which would then hopefully be followed by the integration of the First Nations into the agricultural economy. The mounted police's approach to enabling this process has been characterized by the historian Ronald Atkin as a "benevolent despotism", and by John Jennings as a "legal tyranny". The police insisted that the Canadian law should be applied rigidly to the First Nations, but at the same time were relatively supportive of the First Nations when responding to the claims of the growing number of white ranchers. The force built cordial personal relationships with the First Nations' leaders, which led to a much lower level of violence between the government and indigenous peoples than in the United States. That the NWMP had evicted the American whisky traders whose sales had led to alcoholism becoming a serious problem was greatly appreciated by the First Nations peoples. The Blackfoot chief Crowfoot in 1877 stated: "The Mounted Police protected us as the feathers of the bird protect it from the frosts of winter". Crowfoot rejected a proposed alliance with the Sioux against the United States, arguing that the collapse of buffalo hunting and white immigration meant that his people needed a long-term alliance with the mounted police. Formal negotiations between the Canadian government and the Blackfoot began in 1877, with Macleod representing
Queen Victoria. The resulting
Treaty 7 established reserves for the Blackfoot, in exchange for
gratuities and the promise of
annuities. The Department of Indian Affairs was created to govern the reserves, supported by the police. By 1879, the last of the Canadian buffalo herds had been eliminated by hunting, and the Indians became dependent on supplies issued by the police to avoid starvation. At the same time, the police were managing the
Sitting Bull incident. In 1876 the United States military led a campaign against the Sioux in Dakota; the Sioux's leader, Sitting Bull, concluded that the conflict was unwinnable, and chose to seek sanctuary in Canada. Sitting Bull arrived in May the following year and, by the summer, around 5,600 Sioux had crossed the border despite opposition from the Blackfoot. The mounted police helped to facilitate the negotiations with the Sioux, in which Assistant Commissioner
Acheson Irvine played a prominent part. The Sioux declined to return south, however, and the police had to deploy around 200 men to Fort Walsh to oversee the immigrant community. The police lived in primitive conditions and voluntarily shared some of their own supplies with the Sioux, who were not covered by Treaty 7 and therefore ineligible for government support. , with 7-pounder gun, 1885 Initially, the police focused their law enforcement efforts on dealing with the
illegal consumption of alcohol, which was considered to promote violent behaviour among the First Nations. By the 1880s, however, the police also began to tackle horse theft. Horse stealing was common among the First Nations on the prairies: it formed part of intertribal competition and warfare, and the stolen horses enabled their hunting expeditions. From 1885 onward, the NWMP was charged with the enforcing the apartheid-like
pass system, under which a First Nations person was permitted to leave a reservation only with a pass issued by the local Indian agent and had to return by the time the pass expired. The pass system was brought in as a temporary measure during the North-West Rebellion, but was then made permanent as the government found it a useful means of social control. In response, the mounted police moved their headquarters to the town of
Regina, the new territorial capital which had been founded alongside the railway line. The force was increased in size to 500 in 1882 to cope with the increased tasks being demanded of it, and the police began to use the railway to bring in recruits more easily from the eastern provinces. The mounted police took on a range of tasks associated with the new project. Teams of police escorted the construction teams as they moved across the
Rocky Mountains, having been given special jurisdiction over the area along the line of the route. They enforced the liquor laws, and oversaw the itinerant service workers who accompanied the main construction teams. They defused many of the tensions involving the construction workers and the company, including intervening to resolve cases where the workers had not been paid by the company as promised, but they also intervened to support the railway company. When the railway staff went on strike for higher wages in 1883, the mounted police guarded the company's trains, escorted in new drivers and, when necessary, drove the locomotives themselves; two years later the police broke up a protest over unpaid wages by over a thousand construction workers, arresting the main leaders. The head of the Canadian Pacific Railway,
William Van Horne, thanked the force for its contribution to the final completion of the project. The construction of the railway introduced new tensions between the government and the First Nations. The authorities wished to move the indigenous peoples to reserves north of the railway in order to cut them off from the United States border.
North-West Rebellion and his men evacuating Fort Pitt, 1885 In 1885, the
North-West Rebellion broke out along the North Saskatchewan River valley. Driven by a combination of political and economic issues,
Louis Riel and his Métis followers intended to form a provisional government, gain the support of the
Cree First Nation, defeat the mounted police and seize the region, forcing the Canadian government to the negotiation table. There had been worries among the police about potential instability since the previous fall, and the force had increased its presence in the area over the winter. 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. When the rebellion finally broke out in
Batoche in March, Irvine advanced quickly through the snow from Regina to
Prince Albert, which he garrisoned with 90 police. Superintendent
Leif Crozier took a force of police, civilian volunteers and a 7-pounder (3 kg) gun to Fort Carlton and attempted to seize a cache of supplies. In the process, Crozier confronted a larger force of rebels at
Duck Lake, where his detachment came off much worse in the
resulting fight. 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. 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. Meanwhile, more than 5,000 militia (the nascent Canadian army after the departure of British troops) commanded by Major-General
Frederick Middleton hurried west along the Canadian Pacific Railway. Middleton split his forces into three groups and led the main column, intending to retake Batoche. The second column advanced to Battleford and then marched south to Cut Knife Creek, with 74 mounted police forming the advance guard. There the
column surprised Poundmakers's camp, but the attack by the advance troops failed and the government forces were forced to retreat. After many delays, Middleton finally attacked the rebel capital, winning the
Battle of Batoche and forcing Riel to surrender, before relieving Prince Albert on May 20. The third column marched to Edmonton, supported by 20 mounted police and their 9-pounder (4 kg) gun, where the government captured Big Bear and the remnants of the rebel Cree. Riel was imprisoned by the mounted police at Regina, given a short trial, and hanged. Middleton criticized Irvine and the mounted police for having remained in Prince Albert throughout the campaign, and for failing to reinforce him during the Battle of Batoche. The general recommended closing the force, and replacing it with a corps of mounted infantry. He publicly likened the police to "gophers", who had retreated and hid during the fighting, and his complaints were picked up by the press. Irvine was criticized in the media for his lack of vigour and, lacking the support of the prime minister, he resigned the next year and was replaced by
Lawrence Herchmer. In turn, Irvine complained about Crozier's behaviour and "the impetuosity displayed by both the police and volunteers" at Duck Lake; when the details became public, Crozier resigned.
Operations on the prairies In the years after the rebellion, the government's
National Policy to settle the north-west continued; by 1885, white settlers became the majority in the region as the railway brought in immigrants, and their numbers almost doubled over the course of the 1890s. The establishment of the mounted police was increased to 1,000 men in the aftermath of the rebellion, officially in order to cope with the growing white population, but also to prevent any future uprising by the Métis and First Nations. Levels of crime were initially low, with the police's implementation of the law relatively informal, and focused on upholding the spirit, rather than the letter, of the law, but the force soon faced new challenges as the population grew. Cattle ranchers had moved into the territories within a year of the police arriving, initially clustering around the police posts for protection. The government began to promote the development of the large ranches during the 1870s and early 1880s, enclosing land up to in size and excluding smaller farmers. The police had close links to the ranch owners, and many of the first recruits had gone on to become ranchers themselves after leaving the force. Illegal squatting by poorer settlers started to become a problem, however, boiling over into open disputes during the 1890s, and the mounted police were deployed to evict them. The task was unpopular among the force, but it grudgingly complied until government policy towards the smaller settlers finally changed in 1896. The police provided a range of other services for the new ranches, carrying out operations along the border to prevent cattle crossing north into the Canadian ranches, running
quarantine schemes and helping with veterinary issues. The scale of horse theft by white thieves along the border increased dramatically during the late 1880s, which the police's sporadic deployments were unable to counter. In response, Commissioner Herchmer introduced a system of police patrols across the territories, with scheduled visits and inspections supported by surprise "flying patrols". This approach was enabled by a network of new outposts across the major ranches. Police would visit almost every farm or ranch, seek to get to know every member of the community personally, gather intelligence and ask each settler to record any issues in a patrol book. Along the way, the police helped to distribute relief, including to the Métis communities affected by the rebellion, provided emergency medical assistance, and delivered mail to the more remote areas. Under the new patrol system, the mounted police travelled a total of on average each year on horseback. Backed by harsh sentences from the courts, the process virtually eliminated rural crime. A new system of controlling the movement of the First Nations was introduced by the government after the rebellion. The police received advice that the new policy was illegal, as it contravened Treaty 7, which had given guarantees of free movement, but they continued to enforce it for several years. Eventually the force turned to the
vagrancy laws as an alternative approach for removing First Nations from selected areas. These scouts wore an informal uniform and were empowered to arrest other members of their communities, but not whites. Enforcing the prohibition on liquor began to cause the force increasing problems. The liquor laws had been designed to prevent the First Nations from drinking alcohol, but their terms also applied to the increasing numbers of white settlers in the late 1880s. Although some
temperance groups applauded the measures, most settlers opposed them. Special permits to import alcohol for personal consumption could be granted, but these were not issued impartially, adding to the general resentment. Many members of the force drank alcohol themselves, including liquor confiscated from smugglers, and police beer canteens were established to provide members of the force a legal alternative. Settlers also began to routinely evade the laws in the larger towns, despite mounted police searches, the deployment of undercover officers, and large fines being imposed by the courts. Public hostility towards the force grew and the police soon found themselves almost entirely occupied in attempting to enforce the unpopular laws. Legal changes were pushed through in 1892, removing prohibition and allowing the licensing of public bars; the new law was enforced by local town inspectors, removing most of the force's responsibility for the problem. 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. Prostitution was illegal, but the NWMP tended to see it as a "necessary evil", arguing that the male workers wanted sex, and that to shut down the brothels would cause unmanageable social tensions. Between 1874 and 1890, there were only 12 convictions for prostitution in the North-West, which reflected the "necessary evil" policy of tolerating prostitution. The fact that the men of the NWMP themselves frequently made use of the services of the prostitutes was another reason to tolerate the brothels. In an editorial, the
Regina Leader mockingly noted the "redcoat of the Mounted Policeman is seen flashing in and out from these dens at all hours. As no arrests have been made the character of these visits can be easily surmised!". From 1890, pressure from Protestant churches led to a crackdown being launched on prostitution. However, the campaign was ineffective as the NWMP would raid a brothel and offer the madam the choice of paying a fine or leaving town; generally the latter option was taken. No sooner had the brothel been shut down, then another would open a few weeks later, leading to the cycle being repeated. By 1904, an average of 10% of the force either were being dismissed or had deserted to the United States. In 1907, following complaints that a brothel full of Japanese prostitutes was operating in Nose Creek just outside of Calgary, Superintendent Dean of the NWMP refused to shut it down, saying the brothel was medically inspected every 9 days and to shut it down would cause venereal diseases to spread, leading to a furor in the Calgary newspapers.
Later years (1895–1914) Growth of urban centres Towards the end of the 19th century, immigration, urbanization and industrialization transformed the territories, destroying the old frontier way of life.
Three million immigrants arrived in Canada between 1910 and 1914, many of them from
eastern Europe, and over half of them settled in the territories. The urban population grew significantly as new towns were established across the Prairies. Many of the immigrants were employed by the growing industries of the region, especially the large mining and manufacturing centres enabled by the Canadian Pacific Railway. As society changed, there were fears of immigrants and criminals exploiting the new rail network. As a result, there were a growing range of demands on the mounted police, and they struggled to cope with the changes. The rising population drove an increase in the criminal cases tackled by the force: less than 1,000 were investigated in 1900, but within four years the number of cases had risen to over 4,000. There was controversy around what role the mounted police should play in the new towns, and the force became concerned that these were pulling in police manpower, at the expense of the wider, less populated areas of the Prairies, where the patrolling system had already had to be cut back. A special railway branch was briefly established in 1888, using undercover officers positioned along the railway line to gather intelligence, and plans were put forward, but not enacted, to create a larger
detective branch. Attempts were made to enforce the
prostitution laws in the new towns – previously these had been largely ignored – with the police informally regulating the local sex industries. There was pressure on the mounted police to assist local government in a wide variety of ways, often opposed by the police themselves. These included supporting public health efforts, distributing relief, fighting and investigating fires, and continuing to manage the movement of cattle. New railway lines continued to be constructed, and the police were tasked to assist in the building the
Canadian Northern and
Grand Trunk Pacific lines, as well as the
Crow's Nest Pass branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway, following the pattern set by their earlier work in the 1880s. There was a heavy legal load on the force's commissioned officers both in their role as magistrates and as informal arbitrators between company management and the construction teams.
Industrial relations in 1911, where the mounted police deployed to manage several
industrial disputes The new industrial workforce often lived and worked under very poor conditions, and enjoyed few
employment rights. Workers who left their jobs in protest could find themselves arrested by the mounted police under the terms of the
Masters and Servants Act for deserting their employment, or alternatively detained under the vagrancy laws. Although the position of organized labour was weak in Canada – the
trade unions only had very limited legal rights – the number of
industrial disputes grew significantly over this period. The resulting
lockouts and
strikes sometimes required armed government intervention. The militia was most commonly used for this purpose, but the mounted police were cheaper to deploy and were considered to be more politically reliable. As a result, the force was called in to manage industrial disputes on a range of occasions between 1887 and 1906. 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. Police deployed there again in 1906 for nine months during a dispute between the company, now called the
Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company, and the workforce over
union recognition, pay and working conditions. A team of 82 regular police were reinforced by 11 special constables recruited from within the company, with an undercover constable deployed to infiltrate the strike and send back intelligence. The police maintained order and escorted non-striking workers past the
picket lines. 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.
Klondike Gold Rush , 1898 Up until the 1890s, the government had no presence in the far north-west of Canada. In 1894, the rise of gold mining and a growing population led to calls for Ottawa to intervene, both to control whisky trading and to protect the local First Nations. In response, the mounted police carried out a survey along the
Yukon River and gathered customs duties. Fears grew that the United States might try to seize the mineral-rich region, and a twenty-man police team was established at Forty Mile in 1895. Although there was very little actual crime, frictions soon rose between the police and the Miners' Committees, which had been created to provide informal justice during the previous few years. The police brought the issue to a head in June 1896, sending a team into one of the mining camps to overturn the decisions of the local committee. In 1896,
huge amounts of gold were discovered in the
Klondike valley. Once news of this circulated the following year, around 100,000 people rushed to the Klondike in search of wealth, most with no experience in the mining industry. To reach the area, many prospectors travelled by foot over arduous mountain routes and along rivers using primitive boats, although no more than 40,000 of them successfully reached the goldfields. A substantial and expensive mounted police detachment was established in the Klondike, amounting to 288 men by 1898, representing around a third of the entire force and including many of its most experienced personnel. The borders in the region
had been disputed since the American
purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and most of the influx of prospectors were American. Amid fresh concerns that the United States might annex the gold fields, the mounted police were tasked to assert Canadian control along the border line. The force set up control posts at the borders of the Yukon and at easily controlled mountain passes, equipping the posts with
Maxim guns. 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. The mounted police established their headquarters in the
boomtown of
Dawson City and patrolled out across the Yukon Territory, creating a network of thirty-three posts. Detectives were deployed to infiltrate American organizations to seek out potential conspiracies. The police's role also encompassed fire safety, the management of local game hunting, operating the postal and telegraph system, acting as
coroners and running the mining registration system. 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. 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. 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. Reflecting the improved image of the NWMP, in 1897 as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, a group of NWMP riders clad in their colorful scarlet uniforms marched down the streets of London as part of the Canadian contingent. Indeed, Commissioner Herchmer had proposed sending a force of 350 men to join the
Sudan campaign in 1896, but was turned down by his superiors. The Canadian government turned to the mounted police as their main source for experienced mounted soldiers, and members were given leave from the force for the duration of their service. Combined with the pressures of maintaining the commitments in the Yukon, this reduced the number of the police in the remaining territories to only 682 men by 1900. The similarity of the vast expenses of the
veld to the Prairies was felt to make the NWMP well qualified for operations in South Africa. Herchmer was an efficient bureaucrat, but his authoritarian leadership style made him ill-suited to "handle the hardy dare-devils" who rushed to join up to fight for Queen and Country in South Africa. Herchmer recruited and commanded a group of 144 mounted police volunteers, who made up almost half of the new 2nd Battalion of the
Canadian Mounted Rifles; many of the other volunteers in the battalion were also ex-policemen. The NWMP influence on the Canadian Mounted Rifles battalion was strong; of the officers of the battalion, 13 out of 19 were NWMP men. Of the policemen who volunteered to fight in South Africa, 67.4% were British-born while the remainder were Canadian-born, reflecting the tendency of male British immigrants in Canada to be the ones most likely to volunteer for service in South Africa. Herchmer complained to the prime minister, who then dismissed him from the police altogether, replacing him with
Aylesworth Perry, a career policeman and a supporter of the Liberal government. The mounted police influenced the creation of other imperial units during the conflict.
Lord Strathcona, the
Canadian High Commissioner in London, raised a unit of mounted infantry modelled on the force, believing this would be particularly suitable for taking on
Boer scouting parties. Thirty-three serving members of the police joined the unit, including Superintendent
Samuel Steel, who became their commanding officer. The
South African Constabulary was created in October 1900 to police the recaptured territories; it mirrored the mounted police, with its members again wearing the force's Stetson hat; it incorporated forty-two members of the mounted police and one of its divisions was commanded by Steele. The mounted police volunteers suffered seven casualties during the conflict. Sergeant
Arthur Richardson, a member of the Strathconas, won the
Victoria Cross for rescuing a Canadian soldier under heavy fire at Wolve Spruit. In 1904,
the Crown renamed the force the Royal Northwest Mounted Police to honour its contributions in the war.
Controversy and criticism , c.1905 The mounted police continued to face criticism after 1885, through a sequence of allegations in the popular press known as the "Herchmer scandals". Lawrence Herchmer had been appointed as commissioner partially because of his positive reputation within the Indian Department, but also because of his Conservative sympathies and his family links to Prime Minister Macdonald. Herchmer's brother William – himself a mounted police superintendent – had arrested the newspaper-owner
Nicholas Davin for public drunkenness several years before. Apparently motivated by a desire for revenge, Davin pursued a vendetta against Lawrence when he became commissioner, helped by another newspaper publisher, Charles Wood. The government ordered an investigation, followed by a
judicial inquiry, both of which cleared Herchmer of any serious charges. Nonetheless, the force's reputation suffered from the controversy and complaints persisted that the force was oversized, excessively funded and staffed by political appointees. 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. The force was reduced to 850 men in 1893, and to 750 by 1898. The Conservative government stood for reelection in 1896 with plans to further reduce the size of the force, reportedly to 500 men, but lost to the Liberal party, led by
Wilfrid Laurier. The new prime minister had stood for election on a platform of increasing the rights of the provinces to carry out law enforcement. He produced plans to halve the size of the mounted police as a first step towards eliminating the force, and proposed to establish a new militia regiment in the NWT to fulfil any legacy military requirements. Moving the entire force to the remote region of the Yukon, though, would have more than doubled the cost of the police's training and support arrangements, and their existing bases therefore remained vital to the northern operations. The increasing demands from the railway companies and mining companies for police assistance, and appeals from the ranching community for continued support, also made it harder for the Liberals to consider cutting back the force. The Second Boer War then disrupted plans to create a replacement militia unit, while Herchmer's disastrous tour in South Africa enabled the Liberals to replace him with Perry, a Liberal supporter. As a result, the political argument began to swing back in favour of potentially retaining the force. Finally, Laurier proposed in 1905 that the mounted police should remain in the new provinces, under contract to the provincial authorities for $75,000 (~$ in ) per year apiece – about one-third of the actual operational cost – a solution which was approved by both sides. Despite complaints from Commissioner Perry, the government refused to increase the establishment of the mounted police.
Expansion into the north to
Herschel Island in 1909, led by Constable
William Dempster After the Klondike Gold Rush, the mounted police continued to spread their network of posts across the far north. 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. The police found no evidence of sexual abuse, but took the opportunity to collect customs duties and to attempt to clamp down on liquor sales to the indigenous community. The same year, a well-publicized Canadian expedition was sent to Hudson Bay on the
schooner SS
Neptune, including Superintendent John Moodie and a small team of mounted police. Extending the police's presence across the region was logistically challenging, requiring the creation of a network of new posts and the use of
steamers to move supplies around the coast. It proved to be a harsh existence for the force, particularly when deliveries of supplies were delayed by bad weather. Work began on a
railroad to Hudson Bay in 1908, continuing for two decades, which, although it required substantial police assistance, gradually eased the challenge of supplying the police outposts around the bay. The police opened temporary detachments around
York Factory in 1912, and then at
Port Nelson in 1913, where the police established their divisional headquarters. 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. The First Nations in the north typically had some prior experience of Europeans, for example through contact with the Hudson's Bay Company, and there was little conflict between the police and these native communities, and few crimes committed. The First Nations typically did not like the police, however, and often blamed them for wider government policies; for their part, the mounted police often regarded the First Nations with contempt. By comparison, the mounted police got on much better with the Inuit, who had seen far less contact with Europeans. The force generally took a more liberal, paternalistic attitude towards them, often applying informal justice rather than official laws when the occasional Inuit crime was committed.
Final years (1914–1920) First World War at
Shorncliffe, England, 1918 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. The authorities introduced new war-time secrecy regulations, including the censorship of the press. The Dominion Police therefore delegated much of their responsibilities to local police forces, including, in the cases of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, to the mounted police. Unlike during the Boer War, the mounted police at first were forbidden to volunteer for military duty abroad, and the size of the force was instead temporarily increased to 1,200 men. 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. The police barracks in
Calgary were attacked in October 1916 by a crowd of over two hundred soldiers and civilians, who were trying to release six soldiers arrested for alcohol offences. The building was destroyed, one police officer was shot and several more injured. The demands of the force's new security role, combined with its traditional policing responsibilities, soon overstretched the police's resources. Commissioner Perry raised his concerns about the situation with the government and in response the
Alberta and the
Saskatchewan Provincial Police forces were created, allowing the closure of over 80 mounted police posts. Perry argued that the force had now "largely finished the work for which it was called into existence" and proposed that the mounted police should instead focus on supporting the
Canadian Expeditionary Force in Europe, threatening to resign if the police were not allowed to fight. Despite complaints from the military that there was no longer any requirement for cavalry on the
Western Front, a force of 738 mounted police were sent overseas in May 1918 to form "A" Squadron, and a further 186 were deployed to
Siberia to support the British forces engaged in the
Russian Civil War. By December, there were only 303 mounted police left in Canada, primarily focused on border protection, and the intelligence networks created earlier in the war were allowed to wind down.
Bolshevik fears at Fort Macleod, 1919 Conscription was introduced in Canada during the final years of the war, which was accompanied by labour shortages, pressures for social change, and the rapid unionization of the remaining workforce. While concerns about the Central Powers declined, fears grew in government at the end of 1918 that the new
Bolshevik government in Russia might be covertly orchestrating a campaign of strikes across Canada. In response the Prime Minister,
Robert Borden, created a Public Safety Branch led by the politician
Charles Cahan. Cahan envisaged transforming this organization into a much larger secret service, similar to the
Bureau of Investigation in the United States, but he soon fell out with Borden and ultimately resigned. Meanwhile, Commissioner Perry had put forward three options for the future of the mounted police: the force could be absorbed into the Canadian military; the remit of the force could be reduced to simply policing the far north; or the force could be assigned a much wider role in public and secret policing across the whole of Canada. Perry promoted the third option and
Arthur Meighen, the acting
Minister for Justice, therefore proposed merging the mounted police and the Dominion Police, placing them under Perry's command. The establishment of the mounted force was to be permanently kept at 1,200 men, creating a huge demand for manpower: those members of the force still serving in Europe and Siberia were ordered to return. 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. The police's operations were well run, although no significant evidence of any Bolshevik plot was actually discovered.
Amalgamation The government remained deeply concerned about the Bolshevik threat, and in May 1919 the
Winnipeg General Strike broke out, creating a national crisis which ministers feared would lead to a revolution. The mounted police were deployed to maintain public order and generate intelligence on the strikers; 245 mounted police were sent into the city, supported by four machine guns mounted on
lorries. On June 21, which became known as
Bloody Saturday, military veterans marched through the city in support of the strikers; the authorities called in the mounted police to break up the marchers. By the time the police arrived, the protesters had begun to riot and the police carried out two mounted charges. The police then concluded that they were losing control of the situation and fired their
revolvers into the crowd, killing one man and injuring others. The events in Winnipeg highlighted the chaotic and ill-coordinated management of security issues across Canada, the artificial division between policing organizations in the west and east of the country, and the absence of a single senior leader for security work. Commissioner Perry recommended creating a new federal police force, ideally by amalgamating the Dominion Police into the existing mounted police force. The mounted police, he argued, were much larger, militarized, experienced and had a proven capacity to carry out secret intelligence work. The legislation came into effect on February 1, 1920, officially marking the end of the older force. ==Organization and working life==