Policing the plains : $b being the real-life record of the famous Royal North-West Mounted PoliceMacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
History
Policing the plains : $b being the real-life record of the famous Royal North-West Mounted Police
MacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
Northwest, Canadian -- History; Royal Canadian Mounted Police
However, Constantine and his detachment keep the country in order,
administer justice, collect customs due to the Dominion and generally
make conditions civilized and British. There was a time when it was
generally believed that most of the gold-bearing creeks were on the
American side of the line, but a survey made under direction of the
Police revealed the opposite to be the case and Constantine notified the
miners on Miller, Glacier and other creeks that they were on Canadian
territory, subject to British law and amenable to regulations as to
mining fees, Constantine's modesty and determination are illustrated in
one quiet paragraph, which some of us who knew him will find luminous
between the lines. He says, "A few miners denied Canada's jurisdiction
and right to collect fees on the ground that there was a possibility of
error in the survey. However, I went up to Miller and Glacier Creeks and
all dues were paid without any trouble except that of a hard trip, but
as all trips in this country are of that nature, it was part of the
bargain. On Glacier Creek a number of miners undertook to run matters in
accordance with their own ideas of justice and set themselves up as the
law of the land. The trouble ended, however, by the Canadian law being
carried out." Constantine was clearly serving notice on all and sundry
that the Mounted Police were on hand to live up to their reputation of
seeing justice done and playing no favourites. The authorities had made
no mistake when they sent him in as the pioneer.
Then he speaks in 1896 of new discoveries which began to cause the mad
rush from all parts of the world as the news percolated through to the
outside. "In August of this year a rich discovery of coarse gravel was
made by one George Carmack on Bonanza Creek, a tributary to the
Klondike. His prospect showed $3.00 to the pan." Not bad picking for
George, who became wealthy. But George's shovel and pick and pan,
clattering as he worked, awakened echoes to far distances and the wild
stampede of all kinds of people, prominently the adventurous and the
get-rich-quick class, began with a vengeance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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