Canadian West Prior to 1873
Trade goods moved west and north, bales of fur moved south and east.
Much of western Canada was called Rupert's Land. It was later re-named the Northwest Territories. The only Europeans interested in travelling west were fur and whiskey traders at first. After all, travel was hard—there were no roads or trains, and certainly no airplanes.
To get from Montreal to the prairies you had to cross the Great Lakes by boat, then paddle a canoe upstream. You brought your food with you, or hunted for food along the way. And you slept in a tent or under your canoe at night.
What drove men—and it really was only men—to leave the comforts of “civilized life” and head off into the western fronteir? Fashion!
These hats were the height of fashion thanks to Canada's beaver!
Fur Trade
European fashions called for black felt hats made from beaver. Canada had lots of beaver. The fur trade had begun! Imagine, that flat tailed, yellow-toothed rodent launching the exploration of a country.
The Hudson's Bay Company came first. They built fur trading posts in Hudson Bay and waited for local Indigenous hunters to bring the furs to those posts. This worked for about a hundred years.
The North West Company was started by the French. Their headquarters was in Montreal. This company decided to set up their trading posts further west and inland, closer to other Indigenous tribes.
By the mid 1700s, the North West Company had trading posts across the west, all the way to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The Hudson's Bay Company had some catching up to do!
But there still wasn’t a perceived need for a police force in western Canada. Sure, there were crimes like theft or fights. Most could be handled by the fur traders themselves, who became the de-facto law keepers of the land.
No, there were other reasons for having a police force, reasons that you'll find out soon!
A voyageur or coureur de bois on the trail.
The Expeditions
By the mid-1800s, that big open space on the map began to interest both the British and the American governments. Canada belonged to Britain. The British had paid little attention to Western Canada until now, but rumours were starting that the Americans were looking north to Canada as a possible source of more land and resources.
In 1857, Captain John Palliser along with a geologist, a botanist, an astronomer and a surveyor, set out to explore the Canadian West. They reported back that the west could be settled and farmed. Miners would find coal and minerals, and a railway could cross the mountains. The map produced by the Palliser Expedition was the most useful for many years to come.
The British government sent Sir William Butler to explore the west in 1870. He returned with similar information and a warning that Americans were already trading on Canadian lands.
The Red River Settlement.
Red River Rebellion
The Canadian West wasn't empty. Indigenous people lived on the prairies for thousands of years. Fur traders had built trading posts while other traders traveled freely across the country. Villages had grown around the trading posts. The Red River Settlement grew from an attempt to attract settlers to what is now southern Manitoba.
The Métis community living at the Red River Settlement felt that new British and American settlers arriving in the region would take away their farms. They set up their own government under Louis Riel. Soon arguments turned into armed battles between the Métis community and the European colonists. The federal government sent a militia to stop the armed battles. By the time the militia arrived, one person had been executed and Riel had fled to the United States.
The Cypress Hills, site of the Assiniboine massacre that led to the establishment of the NWMP.
Cypress Hills Massacre
Americans trading on Canadian soil, the Red River Settlement in an uproar, settlers taking the law in their own hands—what other reasons did the government need to create a police force? The deciding factor happened in the Cypress Hills near the borders of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Montana.
In 1873, some American wolf hunters attacked a camp of Assiniboine men, women and children. The Assiniboine had no warning and couldn't protect themselves. The reason for the attack? The wolfers thought that one of their horses had been stolen. It had only wandered away.
This attack horrified the Canadian people. The federal government passed legislation creating the North-West Mounted Police on May 23, 1873.