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Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 21
by Philip Goldring The Force Takes ShapeI November followed the last of the recruits into barracks and winter settled down over Lower Fort Garry. On 3 November Colonel Smith arrived from Winnipeg and summoned his force to take part in a simple and businesslike ceremony which marked the real beginning of the Mounted Police force. The three troops stepped forward, each man to receive his warrant of enlistment and to inscribe, at the end of the articles of engagement, his place in history as one of the "old originals," the first of a celebrated line of wardens of the northwestern frontier. [1] From this day on, Canada would observe the warning of Lieutenant Governor Morris. She would "stable her elephant" with strength, dignity and colour. The pledge signed on this occasion is often called the "enlistment oath," a misleading term since the enlistment oath was taken by each man as soon as he was accepted by the recruiters. The ceremony at Lower Fort Garry involved signing the articles of engagement stipulated by section 16 of the Mounted Police Act. The initial enlistment oath, taken with an oath of allegiance, committed the recruit to "faithfully, diligently and impartially execute and perform the duties and office" of a Mounted Policeman, and to "well and truly obey and perform all lawful orders or instructions . . . without fear, favor, or affection." For the engagement ceremony in Manitoba, Osborne Smith presented a cumbersome text, incorporating much of the wording of the original oath but adding a wealth of prosaic detail which lent no elegance to the historic proceedings. [2] The text limped to a conclusion which was probably inspired by the recruits' incursions, on the Dawson Road, into the officers' special rations of beefsteak and whisky: [3] "We will take care of and protect all articles of public property . . . and make good all deficiencies and damages occurring to such property while in our possession or care, except through fair wear and tear, or unavoidable accident." Previously, the recruits had sworn a simple and dignified pledge to serve the queen faithfully and to adhere to the principles of justice which must underlie the reputation and success of any police force. The oath of office in November had little to say of such lofty principles. It was time to get down to brass tacks. One of the provisions of the engagement, not explicit in the enlistment oath, produced the first of a series of problems which would plague the force because of the haste with which the men had been recruited. Acceptance of a mandatory three-year term of service should have been carefully spelled out, but some recruits had reached Manitoba under the impression that they could resign simply by giving six months' notice. (Six months' notice was actually required after expiry of the minimum term.) Several men refused to be attested for this reason. Four of these were French Canadians and a dozen were New Brunswickers who had been enlisted by Jacob Carvell. The story was eventually unravelled by Carvell, Young and the justice department. Young, it seems, had hastily scribbled down Richardson's verbal instructions before his hurried departure for the Maritimes. There, Carvell found that the government's instructions appeared to be garbled and decided that he must design his own enlistment form. At the same time, he assured the men that three years was the normal term, but that they could resign earlier, if they wished, simply by giving six months' notice. At first the government proposed to pay the unattested recruits up to the date when the rest of the force was sworn in and to discharge them. This was manifestly unfair, as two brothers from Saint John complained in a simple but eloquent plea to the minister of justice: This is a part of the country where there is no work to be had in the winter seasons. With no work . . . what are we to do, without money or friends. Were we not brought here under false pretences? As we are British Subjects we ask for redress. Can we have it? They could. The justice department concluded that Carvell had acted in good faith and that no one was really to blame. The men were promised free passage back East. They received their pay up to 26 November and drew subsistence from then until they were able to depart in the spring. [4] Far more worrisome than the government's inability to swear in a few of its recruits was the fact that stores which should have accompanied the Mounted Police were all frozen in on the Dawson Road and did not ultimately reach Manitoba until months after they were needed. There was little that Obsborne Smith could do, for his own militia supplies, shipped in August, had similarly been stalled en route. Still, he promised to "do the best I can to try to stop 'growling' among the officers and men," and he found bedding and a mismatched assortment of old militia uniforms for them. The officers complained of being "practically speaking without any uniforms" and the men "had to undergo great hardship for the want of proper clothing" during their winter at Lower Fort Garry. Nonetheless, the major necessity — food — was well taken care of by the Hudson's Bay Company, and Major McDonald had ensured that every man had a greatcoat before he left Collingwood. [5] The deficiency of supplies was a nuisance, but it did little to hinder the training of the force, which proceeded apace through the ensuing winter.
Much of the force's first six months was characterized by drudgery interspersed with sheer misery. Only a few of the men were accustomed to the prairie climate. The force had yet to find its eventual balance between the constabulary and military sides of its character and the initial season was organized strictly along military routine. As training progressed and a combination of climate and control weighed heavily upon the men, the officers soon learned who was fit and who was not for the rigours which might be faced in the future. The policeman's day began before dawn and ended hours after dark; it was marked by foot drill, riding instruction, regular shifts of sentry duty at stables and in the fort, but above all by the cold. During the season spent in Manitoba, officers were given special assignments at the Lower Fort to accommodate the peculiar needs of training and initial organization. Thus Superintendent Jarvis did not command a division, but was put in charge of the force on the frequent occasions when the commissioner was in Winnipeg or elsewhere. Another superintendent, Jacob Carvell, acted as quartermaster and took most of the workload from the inexperienced Dalrymple Clark. The three divisions were still commanded by the superintendents who had taken charge of them on the trip to Manitoba. Young had "A" Division; Macleod and Winder commanded "B" and "C" respectively. The sub-inspectors were scattered unevenly through the divisions and one of them, James Morrow Walsh, acted as adjutant and later as riding instructor and veterinarian. The complement was made up by an ever-fluctuating number of constables and sub-constables, about 146 in the first instance. No provision had yet been made for "a Farrier Sergeant, Hospital Sergeant, Saddler, Shoeing smith" or other specialized duties. [6] To overcome this problem, Smith had rearranged the divisions to distribute among them as evenly as possible the men with various trades and crafts, just as he had carefully dispersed men according to language, religion and provincial origin. [7] From the first, the commanding officers tried to impose military routine and discipline upon the force (without, however, military powers of punishment), [8] but these efforts were often eroded by the weather. This was most evident in the disposition of sentries and pickets about the fort. A "main guard," six men under an NCO, was to patrol two posts, No. 1, the main or river gate, and No. 2, the rear or landward gate of the fort. In addition there was to be a stable guard of one NCO and three men, and an inlying picket of two NCOs and ten men. The latter were to be ready at all times, from the sounding of retreat until they were dismissed by the orderly officer of the day, to give the alarm in case of fire, to search for absent men, and generally to carry out the orderly officer's instructions. [9] This comprehensive scheme, particularly for night duty, soon withered under assault by a constant and unwonted cold. The first deviation from these strict rules came early in December, when an order was published permitting sentries, "first and last relief excepted," [10] to stand guard without rifles — both hands, apparently, could be buried deep in pockets for warmth. Another concession followed on 5 January, when the sentry at No. 2 post was withdrawn entirely from last post until reveille. The first sentry was then to "extend his beat and act as a flying sentry for the general protection of the Barracks between 10 PM and 6 am." On the eighth the stable guard was moved from outside to inside the stables. How this privilege was received may be gathered from the recollections of Acting Constable Fullerton, in charge of a stable party at this time. We took our blankets, gathered all the saddle blankets into a pile of hay and unless some tenderfoot had left a halter half tied, we could sleep all night after the officer came around, and they were usually in a big hurry to rush back to their stoves. We hustled things back to their places before stable sounded at 6 a. m. [11] Fullerton's reminiscences are full of small irreverences as well as large untruths, but it is easy to believe that the discipline of officers as well as men suffered somewhat from the temptations of warmth and comfort. Nonetheless, this custom of sleeping on duty cannot have continued for long, for the daily orders of 12 January noted that "Acting Constable Fullerton of 'B' Division is admonished," and warned the force against abusing special privileges granted because of the climate. At the same time, however, permission was given the sentries at No. 1 post to shelter from midnight to 8 a.m. in the guardroom, only emerging at ten-minute intervals to perform a quick check of all the buildings. The very next day the guard was further reduced. In this gradual fashion, plans for a full and formal guard withered under an onslaught of Manitoba weather. What remained was a skeleton force, huddled around its stoves for all but a few minutes of every night. It must have been with genuine relief that Walsh could order, early in April, that the guard would henceforth mount in summer clothing by day and only at retreat should it "put on Great Coats, Belts and Fur Caps." [12] Guard duty represented the static side of the force's first winter; riding instruction was probably the most active. Although the Mounted Police Act stipulated that recruits should know how to ride, only a few were accomplished horsemen; moreoever, Osborne Smith had bought a number of horses which had never been saddled. [13] Therefore a considerable amount of time was spent that winter teaching man and beast to work together. Before the bulk of the force had even arrived, Smith ordered Walsh to lay out an exercise ground, about 40 by 50 yards, in the vicinity of the Stone Fort. According to James Fullerton, who assisted in training the neophytes, this "hippodrome" was lined with brush to help prevent broken bones as horses shed their inexperienced riders. [14] Commissioner French instituted a riding schedule as soon as he took personal command of the force in mid-December. [15] Constables were to ride daily from 9 a.m. to 10; officers rode from 10 a.m. till 11. The sub-constables of the three divisions were to ride for one hour a day, each division having two afternoons a week, after parade and the foot drill which followed it. These instructions were probably thwarted by the weather, for it is not until early February that mention is again made of riding. On the fourth of that month, Walsh was placed in charge of riding instruction with Sam Steele, the stablemaster, immediately under him. In addition to riding instruction, "Horse Exercise" was instituted on 9 March, when very basic manoeuvres were undertaken to familiarize the men with their mounts. Thereafter riding drill was reorganized according to classes, officers and NCOs forming one class, and sub-constables being divided according to proficiency. In addition, regular riding drill was continued, each troop practicing as a unit for two afternoons a week. Men who were not riding or on duty were generally occupied at foot drill. [16] The heavy emphasis on riding drill is wholly understandable and was fundamental to the force's purpose. The regular and frequent foot drills, however, were symptoms of an anomaly in the makeup of the force. Although French correctly reminded his men that they were not militia but police, the training program failed to reflect this distinction. There is no evidence anywhere that the ordinary sub-constables of the force at this stage were given even a basic grounding in the law, or that the officers, aside from a trained lawyer like Macleod [17] were particularly suited to their statutory functions as justices of the peace. From the first, French treated his force as a small regiment of cavalry. The North-West Mounted Police (as the force came to be known) was trained not as a police force but as the "mounted rifles" which Macdonald had written of four years earlier. The Act had assigned to each rank an equivalent military title and these titles were often used in preference to the unimaginative, cumbersome labels which Macdonald had affixed to the ranks. [18] In this way Paymaster and Quartermaster Clark became Captain Clark; on the other hand, Major Walsh retained his militia rank, which was higher than he was entitled to within the Mounted Police order of precedence. [19] There was also a certain amount of military swagger among the rank and file of the force and a corresponding sense of formality among the officers; on 9 December constables and sub-constables were instructed not to wear spurs unless they were accompanied with "Cavalry trowsers and Jack Boots." Great care was taken to train trumpeters and all men went through a period of rifle training. [20] In general, the force acquired a military demeanour in all save its disciplinary powers. This must have been imposed by French deliberately, either in conformity with his own preferences or perhaps as a means of coping with the latent desire of the new prime minister, Alexander Mackenzie, for a military rather than a constabulary expedition into the Northwest. [21] Miscreants among the original Mounted Policemen were tried and disciplined with little paper wasted. Only the sentences for misdemeanours are recorded and these do little to indicate the nature of the offence. Sub-constable F. Payette, we learn from the order book, "grossly misconducted himself" and was fined ten dollars, dismissed from the force and barred from Mounted Police barracks forever; but one can only guess at his offence. [22] Long lists of fines were regularly published with the daily orders, for fines and dismissal were the only punishments the force could impose, [23] yet the offences were not revealed. In fact, the discipline of offenders was relatively slight, for after 19 January not even sub-constables were confined to the guardhouse except in instances of drunkenness or disorderly conduct. They were simply "placed in Arrest," an honour system equivalent to being released on bail. At the same time, fines were levied ruthlessly and a substantial number of men, not all of them deserters, were stricken from the rolls of the force in punishment for offences. The police cannot have found many opportunities for recreation in their winter barracks. Leave was severely restricted, for only the orderly officer could authorize leave for more than two men per division on any one day and requests made to him required eight hours' notice. The commissioner alone could grant leave of more than 48 hours. [24] It is not surprising, then, that some of the men tried to smuggle liquor back to their barracks to while away the long nights. This was ordered to stop in mid-December. [25] The Hudson's Bay Company canteen remained open, however, and since only about one man in ten was on duty between retreat and first post, the canteen must have done a roaring business, It was also a disruptive business from the viewpoint of the officers of the force, as is revealed by a sharp order in January 1874, fixing the fines for drunkenness. [26] A first offender would be punished by a three-dollar fine, equivalent to four days of a sub-constable's pay. For each succeeding offence the fine was doubled. Penalties were also to be doubled against men who showed up drunk for duty and trebled if a man proved unfit for guard duty or stable picket. A further form of entertainment was detected and curtailed two weeks later, when a strict ban was published against gambling in barracks. [27] An order of the same day brought an end to some elements of fraternization between sub-constables and NCOs: Constables who are in the habit of drinking or Card Playing with Sub Constables or having money transactions with them, or who by their general conduct do not endeavour to inspire the Sub Constables with proper respect for the position of Constable, will be unfit for the rank they hold. The exact state of discipline in the force at this time is hard to ascertain. When Osborne Smith turned over command to French in mid-December 1873, the former remarked enthusiastically that "a continuance of conduct such as has already been shown, will . . . undoubtably make this Force not only of the greatest Service, but a credit to the Dominion." His successor, nevertheless, found cause to remark sadly just a month later that he hoped the sub-constables would remember that they were police, not militia, and that "a proper notion of self respect will prevent their committing offences, which it should be their province to apprehend others for." [28] The record, unhappily, is silent on the cause of this outburst, but the entertainments of the force were doubtless more soberly conducted for some time thereafter. Two firsthand accounts of the force's recreational and social activities have survived. One is from a man who showed brief promise but quit the force after six months' service. The other is from one of the original NCOs, later one of Canada's most celebrated soldiers. James Fullerton, the first of the writers in question, [29] remembered his winter at Lower Fort Garry for the skating parties on the Red River. The local girls, he was convinced, always made the weather much warmer than it ever felt when he was on guard duty. The more serious-minded Samuel Benfield Steele enjoyed the parties — particularly the legendary wedding parties — of the Red River settlers, but he also spent many evenings in their homes learning the history and customs of the plains. Steele also mentioned rifle matches though "with the thermometer in the thirties below zero there was little pleasure in shooting." [30] There was also a cricket match held on the queen's birthday and a "Quadrille Club" at which the NCOs and men were undoubtedly introduced to all the elegible young ladies, of the district, It must have been rather a lonely winter nonetheless; all the police were birds of passage, forbidden to marry, and it is unlikely that many lasting friendships were made in the community. For the officers there were two additional diversions. The first was politics; the government which appointed them had fallen. The new Liberal government of Alexander Mackenzie flirted briefly with the idea of sending a military force to the plains instead of the police, but this deviation from Macdonald's plan was soon dismissed [31] and was not, in any case, allowed to affect the training schedule. Nonetheless, some of the more obvious political appointees in the force (Charles Young and John Breden, for instance, to say nothing of Dalrymple Clark) felt it necessary to be, in Clark's words, "most careful." Clark noted in a letter to the deposed prime minister, his uncle, that "of course our fellows are all your appointments, and consequently they can talk more freely than if it were otherwise." [32] Another preoccupation of some of the police, which they shared with many Canadians in Manitoba from the lieutenant governor down, was speculation in land. "The members of the Mounted Police Force are making considerable investments in real estate," The Manitoban reported in April 1874; "We hear of sales of 39 lots of the Magnus Brown Property, and a number of lots on the Portage road to them during the past week." [33] This is hardly surprising. Promises of free land grants were made to ordinary recruits of the force and it is entirely to be expected that the officers would have shared in the land hunger which was, after all, one of the roots of the whole Canadian adventure in the Northwest.
By January the force had begun to diminish. Serious breaches of discipline were punished with dismissal and a medical board discharged 19 unsuitable men who had slipped through the loose scrutiny of the recruiters. A number of recruits, mostly French Canadians, found the life of a soldier-policeman uncongenial and deserted. The drawbacks of hasty recruiting and the pressures of early training were most apparent among the Quebec recruits, who at the end of October numbered about three dozen. Four refused to be attested and another 12 were eliminated by the medical board; six deserted or were drummed out of the force and another two quit after finding substitutes, bringing the attrition rate to 22 — a higher proportion in six months than the entire first contingent was to experience in three years. [34] The high rate of departures can be accounted for in a number of ways. Faulty recruiting was the most obvious cause for a third of the whole Quebec detachment later proved medically unfit; it is therefore not unlikely that Brisebois and Winder had been as lax in seeking character certificates as in ordering medical examinations. The attrition among their recruits must also be accounted for partly by the fact that a majority were French-speaking and were dispersed by Osborne Smith throughout a force which had only one French-Canadian officer. This obvious attempt at assimilation must have offended some of the Quebec recruits and made life more difficult for all of them, and several drifted into drunkenness and insubordination as well as desertion. Whether through the faults of the recruiters or of the trainers, the proportion of the force which came from Quebec was, by the summer of 1874, far below what it should have been. Aside from the problems with the Quebec recruits, the health of a number of Mounted Policemen gave cause for concern and resulted in a substantial reduction of the force. Recruiters had been ordered to have all recruits examined by a surgeon at government expense, but many disabled men slipped through. Commissioner French first suspected this when he noticed a sub-constable who quite obviously had only one eye and others with a variety of limps and aches. Early in January Dr. David Young, [35] a local medical practitioner, was summoned to conduct a special examination of the entire force. Checking up to 50 men a day, the medical board weeded out not only the blind, the halt and the lame, but the scrofulous and syphilitic as well. One case of tuberculosis was discovered, along with one of heart disease and — a grim malady for a horseman — a case of haemorrhoids disqualified another trooper. Unhealed broken bones were discovered and one man, five feet and a quarter inch tall, was dismissed for being too short. In all, 19 men were discharged for medical reasons antedating their enlistment. [36] These 19 continued in barracks at the Lower Fort until 30 April; they were paid in full, were ordered "to retain the Under Clothing served out by the government" [37] and were sent home at government expense. The medical examination, together with the improvements effected by discipline and training, left the force at the end of May a leaner and healthier body than that which had gathered at the close of 1873.
The three detachments had hardly settled into their winter quarters when the Council of the Northwest Territories called for their assistance. On 11 December Colonel Smith was asked to provide a small force to investigate reports of whisky trading beyond the boundaries of Manitoba on Lake Winnipeg, where possession of liquor without a permit was unlawful and trade in spirits with the Indians was strictly forbidden. Smith protested that he was authorized only to organize the force, not to deploy it, and the council's request was pigeonholed until Commissioner French took up his command on 17 December. On Christmas Eve the secretary of the council renewed the appeal for police assistance: "It would be well if a small party of the Dominion Police were sent to Big Black island on Lake Winnipeg." There, according to a "reliable person," some purported lumbermen were "really driving a thriving liquor trade with the Indians of the surrounding coasts." [38]
On 29 December the Hudson's Bay Company officer in charge of Lower Fort Garry recorded the departure from his gates of the first patrol of the Mounted Police. Nine men (three from each troop) under Major Macleod set out and were away for nine days. Various romantic accounts have been published of this patrol, including one by James Fullerton, who claimed untruthfully to have been a part of it, but the true outcome may be gleaned from the journal of Chief Trader Flett: "The party of Mounted Police who went out in search of liquor and liquor sellers returned without finding either the one or the other." [39] Shortly after this patrol, an unpleasant incident proved that the officers and men of the force were beginning to be drawn together by a sense of identity and morale. This stemmed from a fire in the militia barracks at Fort Garry, where two off-duty constables, dressed in their castoff militia uniforms, helped to subdue the flames. Colonel Smith emerged out of the smoke and confusion and, mistaking Constable John McIlree for a militiaman, ordered him to rejoin his company. McIlree replied that he had no company and Smith sent him to the lockup under close guard. Percy Neale then stepped up to Smith and informed him of his mistake; Neale was succinctly told to "go to hell." When McIlree had been released, the two constables reported Smith's conduct to the commissioner. French might very easily have sided with his friend and fellow officer, but he chose instead to support his men. He ordered an inquiry under Macleod and subpoenaed Smith to appear before the inquiry: Smith refused. When Macleod concluded that Smith's conduct was unwarranted and that he had lied in his subsequent allegations (that McIlree was drunk and Neale a liar), French did his utmost to discredit Smith before the force in Manitoba and the government in Ottawa. [40] A trivial but unpleasant incident had pointed to the development of an esprit de corps which might help sustain the force through years of difficulties. That incident also illustrated the sorry shape of the police uniform, which at the time consisted entirely of castoff and surplus militia equipment. In addition to old-fashioned wooden militia saddles and Snider carbines, Smith (in his dual role of commissioner and deputy adjutant general for Manitoba) had issued to the police an assortment of serge tunics which had to suffice until better uniforms arrived from England. [41] These castoff tunics, though no where described, were probably of the old blue militia pattern or the green of rifle companies, which until very recently had been in general use by the Canadian force in Manitoba. [42] When French was informed that a number of red tunics were en route to him, he decided to make do with the mismatched equipment already at hand. [43] The force was clad in scarlet for its march west, but does not seem to have had proper uniforms until the summer of 1874. As S.W. Horrall points out, the force did not receive final orders for its westward expedition until mid-March 1874. The new prime minister even entertained ideas of a joint Canadian-United States movement and did not decide finally until early January to send a Canadian force of some description to the Whoop-Up country. [44] Nonetheless, Commissioner French, in the absence of specific instructions to the contrary, continued to plan as though the force's westward expedition was already determined. Early in January he instructed each of the three inspectors to submit an estimate of the supplies and transport necessary to sustain a division over a long march and a year's absence from contact with civilization. French must have been staggered by the quantities the superintendents requested. Macleod, for instance, requisitioned transport for over a hundred thousand pounds of baggage and supplies for "B" Division alone. [45] French not only accepted these estimates (which were later drastically reduced), but forwarded them to his doubting superiors in Ottawa with the remark that "to take a considerable force into an almost unknown country, and with but little chance of obtaining supplies, is emphatically a big business." [46] Some of the more exaggerated requests were trimmed down, but it was an impressive army of wagons and oxcarts which assembled at Fort Dufferin in June. After less than two months at Lower Fort Garry, French hurried East again to recruit and train a second contingent of police, Divisions "D," "E," and "F," to bring the force up to the number authorized by Macdonald's order in council. French departed on 5 February, leaving W.D. Jarvis (once again in acting command) to complete the schedule of training. [47] The commissioner did not rejoin the force until the summer, when it reassembled at Dufferin. There were, notwithstanding the preparations and the weeding out which a winter's training had effected, grave doubts as to whether the force would be fit to proceed at all. Lieutenant Governor Morris wrote in concern to the new minister of the interior early in March, "I find there is a good deal of suspicion in certain circles here as to whether the Police Force is sufficiently organized . . . & disciplined." He emphasized the rigours of the trip the police must undertake and added that he thought it very unlikely that the officers could successfully discipline their troops unless their powers of punishment were enlarged. [48] There seemed ample justification for Morris's concern. The force had been depleted throughout the winter by a steady trickle of desertions and dismissals; it was only natural to wonder how many more men would break under the strain of actual police work. In fact, of the 144 men attested on 3 November 1873, less than half were still in the force when their minimum term expired three years later. [49] Two politically appointed officers, Breden and Young, resigned before the force left Manitoba [50] and there were sporadic desertions right up to the moment when the force began its westward march. French later expressed no regrets at losing 31 deserters from the whole force at Dufferin, just a few days before the gruelling trip which would surely have broken anyone not fully prepared for whatever lay ahead. [51] The government had tentatively selected Fort Ellice as the headquarters of the force and in April preparations were begun to shift a part of the force from Lower Fort Garry to the new seat of command. The following order reached Morris from Ottawa: Despatch [Shurtleff] and ten men to Fort Ellice or where ever Governor Morris will direct this party will remain there for [suppression] of liquor traffic. They can take ten horses and carts and more if necessary. they will have to take provisions also some agricultural implements and seed grain. [52] Trained as soldier-policemen, they were to begin their careers as farmers! The full purpose of the expedition was not publicly revealed, for the local press made no mention of the liquor trade, commenting only that the men had been "assigned for farming purposes." They left the Lower Fort about the fifth of May to become the first detachment of the mounted police on regular active duty. [53] This minor deployment was only part of the large-scale undertaking mounted by the government in sending the force westward. Tiny detachments would remain in Manitoba, but the bulk of the force was destined to travel into what is now the province of Alberta. Throughout the month of May the Mounted Police arranged to purchase 100 carts and 150 oxen to make up the supply train and a harried Dalrymple Clark was kept busy making arrangements which he described to Macdonald in a letter from Winnipeg: I have been more busy the last three weeks than I ever was. We are purchasing oxen carts &c for the march to the West and by the regulations I am so tied down that I must almost see every ox cart and set of harness before paying for them. The authorities that be, appear to know very little about the difficulties that exist here during the spring weather, and consequently I have been kept on the trot between here and the Lower Fort for the last month. Being 20 miles from the bank and all places of business and having no telegraph office at the Lower Fort is most inconvenient, but all will be over soon. [54] His remarks about "the authorities" might suggest that little had changed in Ottawa since the Macdonald government fell. In fact there had been improvements in the appreciation of western difficulties; the new ministry moved expeditiously to ammend the Mounted Police Act, providing for the appointment of an assistant commissioner — Macleod was immediately promoted — and for pay raises to all constables performing specialized tasks. [55] These changes had little impact on the force at Lower Fort Garry for the Act was passed on 26 May and the police were gone within a fortnight. Indeed, a dozen men under Carvell had already left on 24 May to prepare a camp at Fort Dufferin for the union of the two contingents of the force the following month. [56]
The Mounted Police did not evacuate the Lower Fort entirely in June; Dalrymple Clark remained behind, in charge of supplies, cattle and a handful of men including convalescents in the tiny hospital. The latter were eventually discharged and sent back to eastern Canada. When they left in September, Clark was ordered to prepare "to start with balance of Men and Horses for Pelly." [57] The first member of the force to reach Manitoba in October 1873, Clark thus became the last to leave the Lower Fort a year later. Police matters in Winnipeg were thereafter left in the hands of Warden Bedson of the penitentiary and a civilian agent named Thomas Nixon. [58] The Mounted Police were gone completely from Lower Fort Garry, leaving a few cattle, rooms full of discarded furniture and equipment, and their unpaid bills. It had been a rather short period, less than a year, but the experiences of seven-score men in one winter at the Lower Fort would help to shape a wider history than they could then imagine.
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