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North-West Mounted Police in the late 1800s

He's a strong, brave, honest, horseback-riding Canadian in a red tunic who always gets his man. At least, that's the clichéd image of a Mountie. But with a history stretching back to 1873, the real Royal Canadian Mounted Police have always been more complex than their squeaky-clean, steely stereotype.

"Doctors said if it was a fraction of an inch more, then I would have died," says William Henry Walden in this 1964 CBC Radio clip. Walden, a whopping 106 years old, is recalling being shot by an arrow during in his time as a North-West Mounted Police officer. Walden joined the NWMP (the precursor to the RCMP) back in 1877. He remembers it as a "pretty hard job," but makes a special point to say "the Indians" were "as good a person as any white man."
• Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, initiated the idea for the North-West Mounted Police. In the early 1870s, lawless American whisky traders were starting to flood Canada's newly acquired Northwest Territories (which included modern-day Saskatchewan and Alberta). Macdonald was well aware of the violence that accompanied the early population of the American western plains. He didn't want a repeat of these problems in Canada, so he created the NWMP in 1873 to ensure law and order as Canada settled its new lands.
  • When Walden joined the force in 1877, it was a tricky time for the Mounties' relations with Canada's native people. Thousands of American Sioux refugees arrived in Canada that year, having fled the U.S. because they were being forced onto reserves. The NWMP feared the influx of American Sioux would threaten the peaceful relations that Canada was in the process of establishing with its own tribes, especially since the Sioux were traditional enemies of many Canadian tribes. The NWMP therefore focused a great deal of attention on making sure the Sioux obeyed Canadian laws.

• The North-West Mounted Police changed its name to the Royal North-West Mounted Police in 1904. Then, after the RNWMP merged with the eastern-Canadian Dominion Police in 1920, the name was changed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Medium: Radio
Program: Assignment
Broadcast Date: Jan. 15, 1964
Guest(s): William Henry Walden
Reporter: Lyal Brown
Duration: 5:34
Photo: Library and Archives Canada / PA-122660

Last updated: February 10, 2012

Page consulted on March 22, 2013

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