In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The North-West Mounted Police, 1873– 1885 by Jack F. Dunn
  • Bill Waiser
The North-West Mounted Police, 1873– 1885.
By Jack F. Dunn. Calgary: Jack F. Dunn Publishing, 2017. xi + 815 pp. Illustrations, maps, charts, bibliography, index of names. $30.00 CAD, $35.00 USD, cloth.

Jack Dunn’s North-West Mounted Police, 1873– 1885, is a big book, coming in at 815 pages. That might be surprising to western historians because of the spate of existing books on Canada’s world-famous police force. It might be even more surprising because of the period under examination. Dunn has limited his study to only twelve years— from the formation of the mounted police in 1873 to the 1885 North-West Rebellion.

Dunn, though, was clearly dissatisfied with past studies and wanted to gather as much information as possible about the “formative years” of the NWMP. After all, in his words, it was “certainly the most momentous twelve-year period in Canadian prairie history.” It was the police who “open[ed] the land for white settlement” and oversaw the changes that accompanied the agricultural colonization of the region.

It’s a heady claim. But Dunn never provides a full explanation for his interpretation. He seems to prefer to let the chapters make the case: an eclectic mix of everything that is to be known about the mounted police and their activities during this period. Dunn has mined a wealth of resources about the NWMP and found a good deal of fascinating material— from duties, kit, desertions, sick leave, and recreation to horses, posts, crime, and border patrols. Some of his findings would make great trivia questions.

It’s quite evident from Dunn’s history that the police served as a kind of handyman for the federal government. There was no task that they were unwilling to shoulder in the interests [End Page 389] of maintaining a Canadian presence in the region and ensuring good relations with the Indigenous population. Indeed, Dunn claims that when the NWMP marched across the southern prairies in 1874 (known today as the Long March), the force “effectively established law and order” in the region. He also suggests that one of the main reasons that the Mounties were successful was that they were essentially working in a wilderness with little white settlement.

But Dunn’s argument begs the question as to whether the police were able to operate in the Prairie West because they were accepted by the Indian population and did not meet any resistance to their presence. Did the Mounties really exercise mastery over the Indians?

And was the police-Indian relationship before 1885 undermined by Indian Affairs policies that went against the spirit and intent of the treaties?

There are bound to be quibbles in a book of this size. Dunn, for example, suggests that the Canadian government initiated the treaties when in fact it was the Cree who forced Ottawa to negotiate Treaty 6 with them in 1876. And his use of “squaw” in discussing police-Indian sexual relationships is unacceptable. Dunn also offers little nuance in examining the participation of Indians in the North-West Rebellion— they are largely rebels in his eyes.

Still, the book is a good reference work. The time line, detailed index, and contemporary photographs are welcome additions to mounted police history. Dunn is to be thanked for pulling all the material together in one source.

Bill Waiser
Department of History
University of Saskatchewan
...

pdf

Share