The Gold Rush and the Policing of the Yukon

While we were concentrating on the settlers, Indigenous people and criminals in the West, events were happening in the North that would change the NWMP forever.

The road to the gold fields was a difficult one.

Miners are hardy men who have one goal in mind - to find the mother lode. They look for riches in the most difficult and remote places. By 1894, almost 1000 miners had found their way to the Yukon. Missionaries and whisky traders joined them. The local Anglican bishop became concerned for the welfare of the Indigenous people there, and wrote many letters to the government. Finally, our Commissioner sent two officers, Inspector Constantine and Staff Sergeant Brown to investigate.

The two had orders to take a look around and decide what policing was needed. And if they had the opportunity to collect Customs duties for the government, they were to do so too.

Now getting to the Yukon was not a simple trip. After two and a half months, the two men arrived at Fortymile, a town near the Yukon River. They took a train, steamship, walked, rafted and boated to get there. They travelled to the mining camps, spoke with the townspeople and Indigenous people and observed the goings on. Oh yes, they also collected $3,248.82 in Customs duties for the government. In the fall, Constantine returned south to make his report. Brown remained through the winter to represent the government and continue to collect duties and royalties on gold production.

The men experienced much harsher winters than they ever had on the prairies.

Constantine expected trouble. About half of the miners were Americans and the boundary between Canada and Alaska was only just being established. The miners had ruled themselves to this point; they saw the government as an interference. The gambling houses and saloons also answered to no one. Constantine asked for 50 men. He wanted large, strong men who didn't drink and who had at least 2 years of experience. He was sent back to the Yukon in the summer of 1895 with 19 men to police the entire territory.

The men established the first northern mounted police post at Fort Constantine. They soon realized that policing in the north involved a lot of wood chopping! Keeping warm through the long winter required frequent trips into the forest for more trees. Prisoners in the guard house worked off their fines and sentences at the chopping block.

"The quantities of firewood consumed in barracks and government offices were enormous. Fires had to be kept up all night… One can form some idea of the amount of wood consumed when I say that the Mounted Police and government used nearly 1000 cords, equal to a pile of fuel almost 8000 feet long, 4 feet high and 4 feet wide, all of which was sawn into stove lengths by the prisoners! They hated the "wood pile" if possible more than they did their escorts. That wood pile was the talk of the town, and kept 50 or more of the toughs of Dawson busy every day." —Sam Steele

The other main concern for the men was food. Most supplies arrived during the summer months by steamship up the Yukon River. Once the river froze up, the men had to be content with the supplies they had purchased and put by for the winter and any meat they could obtain by hunting. In years when the river ice came early, the men were on short rations by the end of the winter. For Inspector Constantine, this also meant that prisoners were best fined, shipped out, pardoned or merely reprimanded rather than placed in the guard house where they too would have to be fed.

Luckily the NWMP were well established when the big strike happened. In August 1896, three partners struck gold on Bonanza Creek, 50 miles downriver of Fortymile. The Yukon Gold Rush was about to start!

Constantine finally got the men he needed. Within two years, almost 300 mounted police were stationed in the Yukon, myself included. Our role was to keep the peace, collect Customs duties and provide a strong Canadian presence.

Gold, greed and liquor are a powerful mix. We had our hands full. We investigated arguments over claims, mining partners who disappeared with sacks of gold dust, theft of food from cabins and caches, assaults and murders, liquor smuggling and gambling. We built Fort Herchmer near Dawson City and Bonanza Creek and set up detachments at places like Lake Bennett, White Pass and Chilkoot Pass.

NWMP at their camp at the Chilkoot Pass.

"Order was brought out of chaos eventually, however, but before this desirable state of affairs came about the amount of work done and hardships undergone by the officers and men of the force were beyond belief. As for myself, my waking hours were at least nineteen. I retired to rest about 2 a.m. or later, rose at six, was out of doors at seven, walked five miles up the Klondyke on the ice and back over the mountain, visited every institution under me each day, sat on boards and committees until midnight, attended to the routine of the Yukon command without an adjutant, saw every prisoner daily, and was in the town station at midnight to see how things were going." —Sam Steele

We were worried about the gold-crazed Southerners arriving at Skagway and Dyea, ready to launch themselves into the wilderness without any idea of the challenges ahead. We stationed ourselves at the passes on the Chilkoot Trail and made sure that everyone travelling to the gold fields had at least one ton of supplies for every person in their party. We, of course, collected customs duties on everything they brought into Canada, but we also made sure that they had what they needed to live out one full year in the territory.

Establishing the posts was no light matter. Supplies were brought in from Skagway and Dyea. Lumber was sawn on the west side of the passes at Dyea and packed to the summits. And this in the middle of February! In the spring, the men at the Chilkoot Pass post had a surprise - they had built their cabin on 20 feet of snow! As the snow melted, the cabin sunk until one corner landed on rock. The other corners were propped up. When the snow had finally all melted away, the cabin was 9 feet in the air! During the building of the post and its early months, the men slept in tents. Wood was a day's travel away and some men's sole job was to haul wood. Still, the tents were cold and often wet. Bronchitis was not unusual. The gold seekers kept coming, and all that winter, the Mounted Police were there to ensure safety and justice and to collect duty. At one time, Inspector Belcher, the commanding officer for the Chilkoot Pass post , had $90,000 in a bag under his bed.

Recommended by the Northern Pacific railroad company in the Chicago Record's Book for Gold Seekers, 1897:

150 lbs. bacon
400 lbs. flour
25 lbs. rolled oats
125 lbs. beans
10 lbs. tea
10 lbs. coffee
25 lbs. sugar
25 lbs. dried onions
2 lbs. dried onions
15 lbs. salt 1 lb. pepper
75 lbs. dried fruits
8 lbs. baking powder
2 lbs. soda
1/2 lb. evaporated vinegar
1 can mustard
12 oz. compressed soup
Stove for four men
Gold pan for each
Set granite buckets
Large bucket
Knife, fork, spoon, cup, and plate
Frying pan
Coffee and teapot
Scythe stone
Two picks and one shovel
One whipsaw
Pack strap
Two axes for four men and one extra handle
Six 8 inch files and two taper files for the party
Draw knife, brace and bits, jack plane, and hammer for party
200 feet three-eights-inch rope
8 lbs. of pitch and 5 lbs. of oakum for four men
Nails, five lbs. each of 6 ,8, 10 and 12 penny, for four men
Tent, 10 x 12 feet for four men
Canvas for wrapping
Two oil blankets to each boat
1 tin matches (for four men)

Gambling and drinking took place in the mining camps and in the saloons of Dawson City.

In spite of the dispute between the United States and Canada about the exact location of the international boundary, the NWMP went ahead and built custom houses at White and Chilkoot passes. Almost all gold seekers passed this way to the Klondike.

The Americans took a dim view of this. They believed that the boundary was further east, even past Lake Lindemann and Lake Bennett. 200 US Army troops arrived in Skagway to protect American interests. Canada believed that Skagway and Dyea would prove to be Canadian territory. Finally, the two governments agreed to leave things as they were, and to assume, at least temporarily, that the boundary rested at the two passes. The rapid movement of the NWMP to occupy the passes definitely helped to establish the official boundary a year or so later.

The NWMP detachment at the summit of the Chilkoot Trail.

As the gold seekers descended from the summit, they arrived at a huge tent city at Lake Lindemann. The sound of axes and whipsaws filled the air - to continue to the goldfields you needed a boat. A detachment of two policemen kept the 4000 people in line. The policemen registered each boat as it was finished, in order to keep track of its owners - in the race to the Klondike, people drowned running the many rapids, overturned in high winds, or sunk when their boats sprang leaks. The policemen also dealt with arguments, thefts, deaths and illness.

"…one of the first things I caused to be done after I arrived at Lake Bennett was to have every boat, scow and canoe numbered, and the number painted on it as soon as it was ready to launch, and these particulars, with the names and addresses of very man, woman and child, the names and addresses of their next-of-kin, and the number of their boat, were recorded at Bennett and Tagish in books kept for the purpose." —Sam Steele

Once we were settled in on the Chilkoot Trail, some of our men were sent to establish detachments on the less heavily used routes into the Yukon. One was on the Stikine River to the south, another on the Dalton Trail to the north.

The NWMP kept track of everyone who sailed from Lake Lindemann.

Gradually, we moved into other areas of the Yukon. We had posts about every 30 miles along the Yukon River, one to three men who could relay mail, check the traffic on the river, and make sure that everyone had passed through Customs. Fourteen men were posted in Dawson, and they kept busy with all kinds of police work. Other men were posted on the creeks where the miners were working.

"The next mail went out on December 1… Now that the trail was well known and the trees blazed across the points, I arranged that for the remainder of the winter men and dogs should be relieved every 30 miles, the distance separating our posts. The mail was to be kept going and coming, night and day, the changes of men and dogs to be made in 20 minutes. All attempts made by others during the winter to send out mails were failures." —Sam Steele

The police delivered the mail to the detachments and outposts by dog sled.

By the summer of 1898, the Klondike Gold Rush was over. Anyone still arriving found the best stakes already taken. Some adventurers stayed to work for the miners, in sawmills or at any other work they could find. Others cut their losses and returned home.

Liquor smugglers on whaling ships attracted the NWMP to Herschel Island.

We were well established by now. For a few years, we delivered the mail, making the trip from Dawson to Skagway and back in under two weeks. In winter we used dog teams and in summer, the railway and boats.

Our concern was now to make the Yukon a law-abiding territory. Dawson was our biggest challenge as we battled to stop gambling and prostitution. We also provided guards for prisoners being sent out of the country, for gold shipments, and in banks. Smugglers found more and more creative ways of shipping liquor to Dawson and the goldfields - we even established a police post on Herschel Island in the Arctic Ocean to check the whaling ships as they came in to land.

Gradually, the miners moved away. In 1904, a gold strike in Alaska saw many miners ship out. Dawson became a much tamer place and we settled into our policing duties more and more.

Detachments in the Yukon were small and dispersed.

The Yukon had been a proving ground for our men. They had to work independently and often rely upon only themselves. They adapted well to a northern lifestyle and learned to build log buildings, drive dog teams, shoot rapids, track criminals through some of the wildest country in Canada and carry out their duties with honour and pride.