The Mounties Head North

Baker Lake Detachment

While the world focused its attention on the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon, our men were bringing law and order to other parts of the North. We sent a patrol to Hudson Bay in 1890 and to Lake Athabasca a few years later.

By 1898, the same year as the Gold Rush, we had detachments at places like Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake, Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca and at Lesser Slave Lake.

Northern quarters were small and austere.

At the other end of the country, Superintendent Moodie left Halifax by ship in 1903 to establish a detachment on the west coast of Hudson Bay at Fullerton. Over the next few winters, Moodie and his men patrolled thousands of miles in the Arctic by dog team.

From Fullerton, they expanded their outposts and detachments to include Churchill, Fort Nelson and most of the Arctic islands. By 1919, 70 men in 25 detachments were policing the north.