The Royal Canadian Mounted Police began as a temporary experiment to help the government bring law and order to the rugged frontier outposts west of Ontario.
Over 120 years later, the RCMP-Canada’s first federal police force-is recognized around the world as the ones that “always get their man”.
Perhaps no other symbol of Canadian culture captures the world’s imagination like that of the “Mountie,” the name by which members of the RCMP are often called. With their brilliant red jackets, broad-brimmed Stetson hats and towering horses, the Mounties have gained a romantic reputation for daring courage in their never-ending pursuit of criminals.
Over the years the heroic adventures of the Mounties have been the subject of many popular series of books and movies. These have helped earn the RCMP colourful nicknames like “the Scarlet Force,””Riders of the Plains” and”the Red Coats”. While this fictional account of the RCMP story may be suitable for Hollywood, the truth about the beginning of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is far from glamorous.
Canada at the time of Confederation was a much different country than it is now. Most of the land between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes was under the control of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Settlements were often nothing more than fur trading posts. With no police force to establish law and keep the peace, the posts often erupted in violent conflict.
On December 1st, 1869, the Canadian government bought this land from the Hudson’s Bay Company in hopes of expanding Canada’s interests west towards the Pacific. Sir John A. MacDonald, then Prime Minister of Canada, decided to set-up a federal force of “Mounted rifles” to police the west. On May 3, 1873, MacDonald stood in the House of Commons and introduced a bill calling “for the establishment of a police force in the Northwest Territories.” The passing of the bill by Parliament May 23rd marked the beginning of the Mounted Police.
Sir George Arthur French became the first commissioner of the new force. His first task was organizing the group of about 300 young men into six divisions of 50 men each. During the summer of 1874 the men marched west from Ontario to their new post in what later became Southern Alberta. This established the presence of the force in the west for the first time.
The Mounties spent much of their early years patrolling the frontier, collecting customs along the border, preventing whiskey trading and maintaining law and order. In 1920 their name was changed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Much RCMP activity today is focused on the control of organized crime, illegal drug smuggling and international espionage. What began as a temporary force that would disappear once the prairies were settled has instead become a very important part of crime prevention in Canada.