The Mounties by Elle Andra-Warner

Author:Elle Andra-Warner
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-926613-86-4
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Canadian customs house at the summit of Chilkoot Pass, Alaska. Note the piles of supplies—the North-West Mounted Police would not allow prospectors into the Yukon Territory without enough food and supplies to last the winter.

Glenbow Archives (NA-2615-11)

CHAPTER

4

Pushing into the Arctic

After the frenzied days of the Klondike Gold Rush, policing in the Yukon settled down to conducting regular patrols, investigating crime, managing drunks, guarding prisoners and checking on prospectors and trappers. Mounties also helped other government agencies collect fees, issue licences, collect customs and taxes, take censuses and handle mail at isolated posts.

In 1903, the NWMP began to push deeper into the Canadian North with two historic patrols that brought law and order beyond the Arctic Circle, reaffirming Canadian sovereignty over the area. One patrol would sail to Hudson’s Bay to establish an NWMP presence in the eastern Arctic. Led by the unflappable Inspector J.D. Moodie, this 16-man patrol left Halifax on the SS Neptune on August 22 and by that fall had successfully built a detachment at Fullerton. The other patrol, headed by Superintendent Charles Constantine, would go deep into the western Arctic and subarctic via the Mackenzie River system.

The Western Arctic Patrol

In May 1903, Superintendent Constantine left Fort Saskatchewan with 34-year-old Sergeant Frank Fitzgerald, four constables (S.S. Munroe, F.D. Sutherland, R.H. Walker and John Galpin) and Special Constable Joseph Belrose to bring Mountie authority to the Mackenzie River area and the Arctic. They would be establishing a new police detachment at Fort McPherson and perhaps another on Herschel Island, in response to complaints that American whaling ships were using the island as a winter stopover and demoralizing the Inuit population with alcohol. Constantine assigned Fitzgerald the command of both the Fort McPherson and Herschel Island posts.

It took the men two months to reach their destination. They canoed up the Athabasca and Slave Rivers, portaged 25 kilometres over difficult terrain to Fort Smith, sailed the Mackenzie River on the SS Wrigley and in mid-July crossed the Arctic Circle to begin the last leg of their journey to Fort McPherson.

By all accounts, Fort McPherson was a desolate place in 1903. Located on the Peel River, about 50 kilometres above the junction of the Peel and Mackenzie Rivers, it stood just under 160 kilometres from the Arctic Ocean. The Hudson’s Bay Company had five buildings at Fort McPherson, and all except one were rundown. There was also a church, a missionary house and a few Native huts. Dogs—after whom no one cleaned up—overran much of the village. Even in July, the place was cold and inhospitable.

To house the NWMP’s first post above the Arctic Circle, Constantine rented several vacant buildings for $45 for three months. He then returned to Fort Saskatchewan, but before leaving, gave Sergeant Fitzgerald two orders. The first order was to go to Herschel Island as soon as possible to see if the American whalers or Inuit were still there and to establish a police detachment on the island. The second was to develop the best all-Canadian route from

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