James Macleod by Elle Andra-Warner

Author:Elle Andra-Warner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2019-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

7

The Early Days of the North West Mounted Police

Fort Kipp, originally a whiskey-trading place named Fort Conrad after its builder, Charles Conrad, was a small NWMP detachment, located about thirty kilometres down Old Man’s River, with Inspector Brisebois as its commander. On New Year’s Eve, 1874, with a wicked snowstorm blowing outside, the inspector wasn’t too worried when two of his men, Constable Thomas Wilson and Sub-Constable Frank Baxter, failed to return from Fort Macleod where they had spent their Christmas leave. Given the weather conditions, he expected they had taken shelter at a small trading post along the route.

On the same day, the whiteout conditions had forced Inspector Denny to overnight at Fort Kipp while on his way from Fort Macleod to pick up the mail at Fort Whoop-Up. Colonel Macleod had been reluctant to give permission for Denny’s volunteer solo ride in winter, but as he was as anxious as his men to get mail—the first since July and the March West—he agreed.

Wearing a buffalo coat and hat, Denny was about halfway into the journey when the snowstorm became too intense. He tried to turn back, but visibility was zero; it was bitterly cold, and the snow had wiped out his trail. Denny was lost. Thankfully, his winter-toughened pony took the lead and brought him safely to Fort Kipp. Upon arrival, Denny was concerned but not alarmed when he learned that Baxter and Wilson had not yet arrived back from Fort Macleod.

The next morning, Denny continued on to Fort Whoop-Up. In the afternoon, when he stopped by Fort Kipp on his return ride, the horses of Baxter and Wilson had arrived without riders. A search party found Wilson barely alive, and Baxter frozen to death. Denny rode quickly to Fort Macleod to get Dr. Richard Barrington Nevitt, the NWMP surgeon, who raced back to Fort Kipp. But he was too late—Wilson died before he arrived. Nevitt later wrote, “It was found out that these men had, after leaving our camp, gone to one of the trader’s forts near us and had remained there until dark and then started off in the storm, got lost and died. It cast a gloom over our New Year’s festivities.”1

Their bodies were brought back to Fort Macleod where, on January 1, 1875, at four o’clock in the afternoon on a cold day with a north wind, Colonel Macleod presided over their funerals. Both men were buried with military honours in the NWMP cemetery (now the NWMP Field of Honour).

The First Year at Fort Macleod

The first winter for the NWMP was brutal. Just keeping warm was a challenge, as the government failed to send any new or winter clothing for the men. Their uniforms became so ragged and threadbare that Macleod purchased tanned buffalo skins from the Blackfoot and had the force’s two tailors make buffalo coats, hats, jackets, pants, and moccasins. The Blackfoot also presented Macleod with a white beaver skin, from which he had gauntlets made that he wore for many years.

That first year, relations were good between the NWMP and the Blackfoot community.

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