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Trenholm 1
On the North West Mounted Police: Taming the West
David TrenholmApril 2
nd
, 2007HIST 2783 B2Professor Stefan Jensen
 
Trenholm 2The North West Mounted Police is an organization that is often recalled alongsidenames like John A. MacDonald, the Hudson Bay’s Company, Fort Whoop-Up and theBlackfoot Indians. The N.W.M.P. is an intrinsic component of Canadian culture, historyand identity—it is known today, however, by a different name: the Royal CanadianMounted Police. In preserving the tradition, culture and mandate that shaped the N.W.M.P., the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has risen to become one of the mostrecognizable symbols in Canada, and one of the most recognizable symbols on the worldstage.
1
 The scarlet-clad Mountie is now synonymous with Canada around the world. It isnot a coincidence, then, that the history and origins of the R.C.M.P. are so closelyconnected to that of its nation, specifically on the evolution and development of Canada.It was in turbulent times when the burgeoning new government, the Dominion of Canada, began setting its sights on the west in an effort to form a nation that spanned from theAtlantic to the Pacific. With the Americans to the south, Prime Minister John A.Macdonald had cause to worry about his plans of expansion, and it was from this parliamentary concern that the idea of a pseudo-military police force formed. The NorthWest Mounted Police were intended to act as an arm of the Dominion Government in thevastly under-represented Canadian west—there was little government control in the North West Territories after the Dominion had acquired it. Rumours and reports of violence, robbery, murder and other crime had also concerned the government, as prospective settlers would be understandably more hesitant to move and expand into thewest if the area was unprotected and exposed to lawlessness. The pacification of thevarious indigenous populations was also a concern for the government, preferably using
1
Rob Cameron, “About Us,” CanadianMountie.org,http://www.canadianmountie.com/aboutus.html(accessed March 14th, 2007)
 
Trenholm 3non-violent means. The clashing between American forces and the various native bandsof the United States discouraged Macdonald from addressing this issue with a militarysolution, as the cost—both to human life and the federal treasury—could have been great.The North West Mounted Police, then, was formed in 1873 and after only a short year were deployed, beginning their historic 900-mile Great March West. Facing threats of American expansion, lawlessness and restless indigenous peoples, the Dominion’ssolution of dispatching a Mounted Police Force has been seen as quite an effective one.The initial three hundred members of the N.W.M.P. and their mandate were quite capable,and certainly up to the daunting task of policing half a nation. They were not onlyeffective in representing the government and their sovereign claim to the affected regions, but also in preserving law, order and the friendly relations that had been fostered betweenthe local aboriginal people. The North West Mounted Police, as a result of their historicsuccess in the west, have been immortalized in Canadian history. They remain animportant part of the development of Canada and the culture, nationalism and patriotismthat pervades it.Cecil Denny, the knighted author and former member of the N.W.M.P.,summarizes the current state of western Canada in 1873 quite easily in his narrative
The Law Marches West 
, “Violence was in the saddle over Canada’s West—battle, murder, andsudden death, a composite of evils which, from the Red River to the Rocky Mountains,year by year, exacted a grisly toll.”
2
A sad state of affairs for a growing country, indeed.The simple fact that violent crime on a such large scale was affecting the west wasdisconcerting for the Dominion government; they had just acquired the North WestTerritories and were hoping to settle it. Western lawlessness was widely acknowledged,
2
Sir Cecil Denny,
The Law Marches West.
(Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1972). 1.
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