He led the Cavalry, Alberta Field Force, in the North-West Rebellion, 1885 and, as commander of N.W.M.P. in Yukon and B.C., 1898-99, preserved order at the height of the Yukon gold rush.
He raised and commanded Strathcona's Horse in the South African War, trained and commanded 2nd Division, World War I. Major-General Steele, K.C.M.G., C.B., died in London, England in 1919.
http://www.ontarioplaques.com/Plaques_STU/Plaque_Simcoe29.html
http://www.rcmpgraves.com/memorials/steele.html
http://maintainourmemories-rcmpgraves.blogspot.com/
RCMP Graves, 'Maintain Our Memories'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQYZiPc3AgY
Superintenent Sam Steele, Historical Visionary of the North West Mounted Police.
He used his brains,not guns,not tasers,and certainly not direct energy weapons.
http://rcmpvets.net/lastpost-alpha.htm
This page lists the members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who have recently passed away.
I will also include those who have passed away not so recently - but I have to be informed of the details. This listing is not necessarily all inclusive. It shows only those whose death is reported to me.
To ensure a listing on this page, kindly forward a message to me at, mpvets@rcmpvets.net
Some names are highlighted with colour. Light blue indicates that the member died in the line of duty while light gray indicates that they were still serving members at the time of their death.
| The Men of the North West Mounted Police | Français | |||||||
| As most Calvary's starting off in the mid to late 1800's they were volunteer with a promise of land or moneys later. The Group approved By Canada's First Prime minister Sir John A MacDonald and Queen Victoria. The North West Mounted Police was only suppose to help settle the west, stop the whiskey trade, and bring peace between the Seven Nations and settlers. All of that achieved and more. Trained by the Scotland Yard in the late 1800's they become one of the worlds best efficient police forces in the world . Participating in the following : Reil Rebellion, Boar War, WW1,WW2, and current day Afghanistan for reconstruction purposes. | ||||||||
OUR NATIONAL POLICE FORCE
THE RIDERS OF THE PLAINS
by E. Pauline Johnson
Who is it lacks the knowledge? Who are the curs that dare
To whine and sneer that they do not fear the whelps in the Lion's lair?
But we of the North will answer, while life in the North remains,
Let the curs beware lest the whelps they dare are the Riders of the Plains;
For these are the kind whose muscle makes the power of the Lion's jaw,
And they keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law.
A woman has painted a picture,--'tis a neat little bit of art
The critics aver, and it roused up for her the lover of the big British heart.
'Tis a sketch of an English bulldog that tigers would scarce attack,
And round and about and beneath him is painted the Union Jack.
With its blaze of colour, and courage, its daring in every fold,
And underneath is the title, "What we have we'll hold."
'Tis a picture plain as a mirror, but the reflex it contains
Is the counterpart of the life and heart of the Riders of the Plains;
For like to that flag and that motto, and the power of that bulldog's jaw,
They keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law.
These are the fearless fighters, whose life in the open lies,
Who never fail on the prairie trail 'neath the Territorial skies,
Who have laughed in the face of the bullets and the edge of the rebels' steel,
Who have set their ban on the lawless man with his crime beneath their heel;
These are the men who battle the blizzards, the suns, the rains,
These are the famed that the North has named the "Riders of the Plains,"
And theirs is the might and the meaning and the strength of the bulldog's jaw,
While they keep the peace of the people and the honour of British law.
These are the men of action, who need not the world's renown,
For their valour is known to England's throne as a gem in the British crown;
Thses are the men who face the front, whose courage the world may scan,
The men who are feared by the felon, but are loved by the honest man;
These are the marrow, the pith, the cream, the best that the blood contains,
Who have cast their days in the valiant ways of the Riders of the Plains;
And theirs is the kind whose muscle makes the power of old England's jaw,
And they keep the peace of her people and the honour of British law.
Then down with the cur that questions,--let him slink to his craven den,--
For he daren't deny our hot reply as to "who are our mounted men."
He shall honour them east and westward, he shall honour them south and north,
He shall bare his head to that coat of red wherever that red rides forth.
'Tis well that he knows the fibre that the great North-West contains,
The North-West pride in her men that ride on the Territorial plains,--
For of such as these are the muscles and the teeth in the Lion's jaw,
And they keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR9N1ia1RgU&NR=1
RCMP Tribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGUqXZotrlU&feature=related
Soldiers of the British Empire Tribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KACJD-d7Jc4&feature=related
RCMP Tribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArJb7PXMJUg&feature=related
Tribute to the RCMP Members Killed on Duty Since 2000
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Superintendent Sam Steele of the North West Mounted Police was no stranger to action. The big, burly Mountie had helped rid the west of whisky traders, policed the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and averted war between natives and white settlers in British Columbia. At last, as commanding officer at Fort Macleod, married, with three children, he thought he might settle into peaceful retirement.
ReplyDeleteBut the discovery of gold in the Klondike changed that prospect. Canada needed someone to control the thousands of miners [mostly American] who flooded the Yukon. They also needed someone to hold the territory for Canada. The man for the job was Sam Steele.
Steele arrived in the American port of Skagway, Alaska in February 1898. Skagway was a wide-open town, dominated by a suave killer named Soapy Smith. Smith controlled the saloons and dance halls, where gamblers and prostitutes parted miners from their gold. Steele was determined to keep Smith and his type of corruption out of Canadian territory.
He scaled the passes of the St. Elias Mountain that terrible winter. With parties of Mounted Policemen, he set up border posts flying the Union Jack. The Mounties collected custom duties, confiscated handguns, and arrested men who mistreated their pack animals. It was clear that Steele was in charge. Soapy Smith's desperadoes were met at the border by Winchester rifles and Canadian law.
In the spring, Steele moved down to Lake Bennett, a tent city of more than 10,000 people. Here, prospectors saw two sides of Steele. He was known to lend his own money to men down on their luck, and to write personal letters to the families of those who died in the territory. But he could also be tough. One American caught with marked cards protested that he had rights as a U.S. citizen. Steele confiscated all of his goods and had a Mountie escort him on the 50 km. climb to the border.
Once the ice cleared, Steele and the other stampeders of Lake Bennett rode the wild Yukon River down to Dawson, with many hazards and fatalities on the way. Dawson was a chaotic boomtown of saloons, gambling dens, dance halls and a population of 14,000, including a number of veterans from Soapy Smith's gang. With a force of only 13 men, Steele cleaned up the town. He knew that he could not prevent the gambling and other vices, but he made sure that the games were honest, and he dealt swiftly with those who disturbed the public order. He also formed a board of health that stemmed a raging typhoid epidemic.
Unfortunately, it was political corruption that ended Steele's posting. Politicians in Ottawa wanted their friends to get a share of the Yukon gold, and Steele stood in their way. The crooked minister in charge of the Mounted Police relieved Steele of his command, despite the pleas of the citizenry of Dawson.
When Steele tried to leave quietly in September 1899, the prospectors, gamblers, ragtime piano-players, and dancehall girls of Dawson poured down to the wharf to give Steele "such an ovation and send-off as no man has ever received from the Klondike gold-seekers," in the words of a local newspaper. They cheered Sam Steele until his steamboat was out of sight.