Assisting New Immigrants

People came from the United States and Europe to homestead.

The government had a plan. Some Americans had been threatening to take over Canadian lands. British Columbia had joined Canada, on the promise of a railway from sea to sea.

The only problem was that huge expanse of land now called Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. That empty land needed to be filled with farmers, ranchers and towns.

The government was keen to settle the west. In 1872, it passed the Dominion Land Act. This gave an energetic farmer 160 acres of land free. All he had to do was build a house on the land, plant crops and live there for at least three years.

This wasn't as easy as it sounds - with few neighbours, farmers had to rely upon themselves and their families. Sometimes the isolation was just too much. Sometimes the weather turned against them and either burned their crops or froze them. It was a hard life. In the early days about one-third of all homesteaders moved on.

Slowly though, settlers began to arrive. The first were from Ontario and the United States. By 1896, a flood of immigrants from Europe began to arrive.

Settlers

The police checked on the settlers whenever they could.

There was a small log-house on the opposite side of the river in a clearing amid the bush. There were no outbuildings attached to this small ranche, merely a corral for cattle and a sadly neglected garden. A stockman with his mother and sister occupied this one-room shanty, through the roof of which the rain would pour in streams upon the beds; his cattle used to roam at large upon the plains, or in the deep meadows which fringed the windings of the Souris.

"The house stood about two miles from the frontier line on the north side of the Souris valley, and was posted like a vedette in advance of the army of settlement. The stable lay at a little distance from the white-washed house, and was also built of logs, against a cut bank, so that the back of the place was of earth. The roof consisted of hay which could be forked off for use in the spring. A few log buildings thatched with straw or manure, stood a short distance from the dwelling-house, and did duty as folds for the cattle and sheep." - John George Donkin

The NWMP kept an eye on everyone who was coming, or going.

Our men met the trains and stagecoaches. We kept track of who arrived in the area, just in case we had trouble later on. We gave the settlers what advice we could - what land was left in the area, whether it was good for farming, what crops had grown well the previous year.

Some of our men had been farmers before they joined the NWMP so they could speak knowledgeably about crops and soil. We would give seed grain to new arrivals and kept an eye on the health of their animals - we didn't want any diseases spreading to other livestock!

We still patrolled the trails, in fact, we established more outposts and made more patrols. We looked out for horse thieves and stolen cattle. In the southern part of the territory, Canadian ranchers needed huge tracts of land to graze their cattle.

Animals coming north over the border were inspected for brands and disease.

We often herded American cattle back across the line, to protect our own grasslands. We rode from ranch to ranch, settler to settler, to check up on folks.

Some say that we made more visits to settlers with pretty daughters, but I can assure you that we treated everyone fairly! We gave them the latest news, brought them their mail and gave them a helping hand if they needed it. We made sure that no one had been injured and was alone, far from help, or starving after a particularly hard winter.

You could say that we were immigration officers, land men, agriculture experts, and welfare workers as well as policemen. By 1914, there were over a million settlers on the prairies, and we had helped most of them.

Policing the New Communities

Towns like Fort Macleod bustled with the influx of settlers.

Most immigrants settled along the new rail line at Medicine Hat, Moose Jaw, Swift Current and Maple Creek. Others settled at or near our posts at places like Wood Mountain, Regina, Battleford, Fort Macleod, Calgary, Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan.

Our work grew as the towns grew. Our posts had the first post offices and we acted as postmasters until around 1883.

We collected custom duties, acted as Indian agents and at some of our detachments, kept track of weather records.

We kept a count of all the people who moved west. Eventually, many of these tasks were taken over by other government departments, and we could concentrate on police matters.

Liquor smuggling was still a major problem and searching wagons, rail cars and baggage for liquor took up much of our time.

Liquor smugglers were creative, hiding liquor in barrels of flour, kerosene tins, even animal carcasses.

We also began escorting mail runs to protect them from robbery. We pursued and charged criminals with a number of offences.

Our first few years on the prairies were interesting, but at times lonely.

The growing towns soon hosted cultural events and parties.

With so many new neighbours, we hosted dances, held cricket matches, sponsored games of skill and some of our men even organized bands that would play for community events.