North West Mounted Police livestock

I mentioned already that the North West Mounted Police brought both horses and cattle into the North West Territories. A few of those animals even survived the trip.

If is apparent that those implementing the idea of a mounted police force to administer national and personal security in the territory had no idea of the area, the terrain, the numbers of people in residence, the weather or any other aspect of the country. The money spent on the venture was completely inadequate as was the equipment and animals chosen.

Of course, as is the case with ventures today, many of the choices were made due to the training and previous experience of those responsible for the decisions. The new commissioner of the force appointed by Prime Minister MacDonald was a man of military training and experience. He had attended Sandhurst military academy, been commissioned in the Royal Artillery and seconded to the Canadian militia where he eventually became head of the Gunnery School at Kingston.

Colonel French had very specific ideas about how a military command or a quasi-military police force should be directed and how such a group of troopers should conduct themselves. Those ideas where from the British Isles, from his military training, from his artillery experience and had nothing to do with the specifics to be found on the Canadian prairies.

This is probably a good time to mention the peculiar circumstances of rank to be found in the early NW Mounted Police since it might become confusing as we continue. Commissioner French had been a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Artillery and retained the designation “Colonel” in the police force but this was not exactly a continuation of his army rank since the Act which created the force also designated that the rank of ‘Commissioner’ was equal to a military rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Similarly, superintendent/inspector was equal to captain, superintendent/sub-inspector a lieutenant, paymaster a captain and a veterinary surgeon a lieutenant. Within the ranks those seven non-commissioned officers leading the six Divisions and Headquarters Troops (A through F and H) officially designated ‘chief constables’ were addressed by the men as ‘Sergeant Major.’ The full constables, close to sixty in number were called ‘Sergeant’ and to make it all more confusing the rest of the men (about 260 after the ‘weeding out’ process), officially designated ‘sub-constables’ and equal to a private were addressed as ‘sub-constable.”

However, back to the livestock and why it was chosen.

The original nine officers were chosen and appointed in 1873. That same summer the first hundred and fifty farmers, teachers and store clerks were chosen, quickly assembled at “New Fort” (in Toronto) then loaded on Great Lake freighters and sent to the lake-head. From Fort William (Thunder Bay) they walked the “Dawson Route” to Lower Fort Garry where they spent the winter.

The so-called Dawson Route, named after George Dawson the same civil engineer whose name is on Dawson Creek and Dawson City proved to be as much a warehouse as a route. More than half the equipment and supplies the fledgling policemen stepped off the ships with was stored along the trail. On two occasions camps made on low ground where subject to heavy rain followed by freezing temperatures. On each of those mornings something or several somethings could not be retrieved as they were frozen into the swampy ground. Some of it was recovered the following spring.

Following appointment of French as Commissioner in’73 he spent a great deal of his time ensuring that Canada’s Federal Government who had passed the Act creating the force would actually support it once it was more than a few words on paper. Having been assured of such support he began the recruitment of another 150 men and made arrangements for their initial training. That accomplished he went south to the US, caught a train for Fargo, Dakota Territory, a dogsled to Fort Dufferin, Manitoba, rented a horse and wound up in Fort Gary, Manitoba fifteen days later.

Colonel French was not particularly thrilled with what he found in Fort Gary. In his diary he remarked that “the officers generally are a good lot of fellows but … 15 or 20 of the men should never have been sent here being altogether too weak.” With the aid of a local civilian doctor (David Young) French had already discharged 19 men for a variety of maladies but rectified the shortfall in manpower by increasing the second recruitment to 200 men upon his return to Toronto in February.

He was also less than pleased with the horses. Thirty eight had been purchased locally and another thirty four where eventually purchased in Dakota Territory all of them “westernized” and mustangs. French’s comment in his notes is that “the animals are scarcely fit for our work.” He goes on to say that he believes they will need “200 or 300 horses which will have to come from Canada or the States as they are not to be had here.”

A constant micro-manager French insisted on interfering with aspects of the venture in which he had not experience whatever. For example travel in the west by large bodies of men had always been done with pemmican as the main staple. However French decided that instead of using the tried and true the Mounted Police would take a “walking larder” of cattle.

On July 8, 1874 the North West Mounted Police led by Commissioner George A. French left Fort Dufferin, Manitoba. In attendance was the Assistant Commissioner, James Macleod, 26 officers and non-commissioned officers, 247 constables and sub-constables and 7 Métis guides and scouts. Another 20 Métis assisted by troopers were driving and caring for 114 Red River carts and 73 wagons. Some of the wagons were pulled by horses but most and all the carts were pulled by the 142 oxen in the train. Of the 311 horses 240 of them had been brought by train from the east and those that where not thoroughbred did have a great many thoroughbreds in their ancestry. To round out their livestock was a herd of eleven bulls and fifty four cows that had already started calving.

(At this point some readers will understand how this tale fits in with previous posts concerning the growth of the cattle business in Western Canada.)

A few of the more senior officers had a vague idea of their destination. The troopers had been informed they would be going to the west to stop the whiskey trade. Commissioner French thought they would make the trip in less than half the time they would actually use. None of them had any idea of the horror they where stepping into.

Boone Helm, killer and cannibal

Born in Kentucky in 1828 Boone Helm was the second youngest of five brothers who all died violently. It is well known that at least two of the brothers where homidical and perhaps all of them required quick separation from life as a means of protecting the rest of society. However it is doubtful that any of them where as dangerous to human kind as was Boone.

            His first victim was supposedly a friend, Littlebury Shoot who couldn’t decide fast enough, in Helm’s estimation at least, when they should leave Jefferson City Wyoming for the gold fields of California. Boone ended the discussion by plunging a knife into Shoot’s heart. The year was 1852.

            He was captured and returned to Missouri where he demonstrated his fine acting ability and convinced authorities that he was insane. Once he had established a back-ground as a model inmate he escaped and headed once again for California, killing several people in his travels. Familiarity breeds contempt it is said and such was demonstrated when Boone was careless enough to allow a witness to view him shoot a man in the back. Now he was wanted for murder in California.

            Avoiding a California lynching Helm appeared in The Dalles, Oregon where he attached himself to a group of gambling prospectors. There was gold just to the north in the British Colony of British Columbia but they also had a police force up there. The group decided to go east through the Wasatch Mountain Range to the gold strike at Camp Floyd, Utah.

            It was a poor decision for winter was closing in. In 1860 Helm made it to Salt Lake City where he had money to spend. When he left Oregon he had been broke. A great deal of evidence suggests that he survived the mountains and passes by consuming parts of at least one of those in the party that left Oregon; perhaps the very one who also supplied the money.

            After that it was a horse stealing operation where he found it more convenient to kill the two men guarding those horses. Later, in Lodi, Utah a soldier assigned to the US Quartermaster Corp recognized him in a crowded saloon. Helm solved that problem with a bullet through the soldier’s head.

            Back to California, where there were suspicions and then to Washington Territory where he had an argument with Dutch Fred a well known and popular gambler. Later, Helm won the argument by shooting Dutch in the back as he played poker.

            Dutch, as mentioned, was popular. Helm was quick and only escaped Dutch’s friends by going north across the 49^th parallel into the British Colony.

            In July, 1862 three bodies floated down the Quesnel (Kwe-nell) River. They where identified as three miners well known to fellow miners in the Williams Creek area. They where known to have $32,000 in gold. After several witness statements and police work by BC Colonial officers it was shown that Boone Helm was the culprit. A posse was formed but Helm had disappeared.

            Barely off the ship and in Victoria on the Vancouver Island Colony Helm was arrested October, 16, 1862 for stealing apples and refusing to pay for drinks in several saloons.

            He tried his acting abilities again. He told Judge Pemberton that he was “a stranger in a strange land” and that “if it wasn’t for the prison cell I occupied last night I would have had to walk the streets of this fair city as I am wholly alone, penniless and afraid, having neither chick nor child, kith or kin.”

            Pemberton said later that it was an excellent presentation. However, Helm had been bragging the night before in his prison cell of how dangerous he was and how he had killed a man in Washington country. He sentenced Helm to a month in jail hoping they could get word to US authorities and have a reception committee waiting for Helm when he stepped out of Victoria’s Square Bastion stockade.

            Perhaps the letter was lost. Perhaps the person who received the letter had never heard of Dutch Fred. Perhaps they had more pressing business that month. Whatever the reason, there was no response from the US and at the end of the thirty day sentence Helm was released.

            Three days after his release, Victoria Police Chief Horace Smith received a message from the Deputy US Marshall in Florence. However, Helm was already well across Georgia Straight and somewhere up the Fraser River in the Colony of BC.

            With Victoria Police, Vancouver Island Colonial Police, British Columbia Colonial Police and US Marshalls all looking for Helm, his travel plans where bound to change.

            Boone Helm was captured near Fort Yale on the Fraser River.

            Was he headed back up country to dig up the gold from the triple murder the year before? The amount missing would be the equivalent of more than a million dollars in early twenty first century. It was in gold, a product readily identifiable as to area. Two months after the murders when he appeared in Victoria Helm was broke.

            Or did one of the so-called witnesses have the gold?

            There is no record of anyone have that kind of money or of a sudden unexplained change in fortunes.

            Since the murder of Dutch Fred preceded the others known at the time and US authorities where already on-site, Helm was extradited to Washington Territory. However, older brother “Old Tex” Helm bribed the main prosecution witness and the case fell apart. Once again Boon Helm walked and was no where to be found when Colonial authorities suggested he could now be tried for the triple murders on the Quesnel River.

            However, does anyone remember the story of Virginia City, Montana 1864? Miners where disappearing there in unknown numbers, along with their gold, until, under the strictest secrecy, a vigilante committee was formed. Henry Plummer and his band, the “Innocents” where, in most cases, caught and hung. On the morning of January 14^th, 1864 more than 5000 residents watched as Jack Gallagher, Clubfoot Lane, Frank Parrish, Hayer Lyons and, yes, Boone Helm were hanged.