Sam Steele - Life in The Mounties

Life in The Mounties

In 1873, Steele was the third officer sworn in to the newly formed North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), entering as a staff constable. He was one of the officers to lead the new recruits of the NWMP on the 1874 March West, when he returned to Fort Garry, present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba. To him fell the rank of staff sergeant major and the responsibility—as an accomplished horseman and man-at-arms—of drilling the new recruits. In 1878, Steele was given his own command at Fort Qu'Appelle, Northwest Territories.

In 1877, he was assigned to meet with Sitting Bull, who, having defeated General Custer at Little Bighorn, had moved with his people into Canada to escape American vengeance. Steele along with U.S. Army General Alfred Howe Terry attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Sitting Bull to return to the United States. (Most of the Sioux did return a few years later.)

During the North-West Rebellion Steele was dispatched with a small force. Missing the Battle of Batoche the Mounties were sent to move against the last rebel force led by Big Bear. He was present at the Battle of Frenchman's Butte, where Big Bear's warriors defeated the Canadian forces under General Thomas Bland Strange. Two weeks later, Steele and his two dozen Mounties defeated Big Bear's force at Loon Lake, District of Saskatchewan, in the last battle ever fought on Canadian territory. The contributions of the NWMP in putting down the rebellion went largely ignored and unrewarded, to Steele's great annoyance. By 1885, Steele held the rank of superintendent. He established a NWMP station in the town of Galbraiths Ferry, which was later named to Fort Steele in British Columbia after Steele solved a murder in the town. He then moved on to Fort Macleod, District of Alberta, in 1888.

In 1889, at Fort Macleod, he met Marie-Elizabeth de Lotbinière-Harwood (1859–1951), daughter of Robert William Harwood. They were married at Vaudreuil, Quebec in 1890. They had three children, including Harwood Steele, who would fictionalize episodes from his father's life in novels such as Spirit-of-Iron (1929).

The discovery of gold in the Klondike, Yukon, in the late 1890s presented Steele with a new challenge. Although he campaigned unsuccessfully for the position of assistant commissioner in 1892, in January 1898, he was sent to succeed Charles Constantine as commissioner and to establish customs posts at the head of the White and Chilkoot Passes, and at Lake Bennett. He was noted for his hard line with the hundreds of unruly and independent-minded prospectors, many of them American. To help control the situation, he established the rule that no one would be allowed to enter the Yukon without a ton of goods to support themselves, thus preventing the entry of desperate and potentially unruly speculators and adventurers.

Steele and his force made the Klondike Gold Rush one of the most orderly of its kind in history and made the NWMP famous around the world, which ensured its survival at a critical time when the force's dissolution was being debated in Parliament. By July 1898, Steele commanded all the NWMP in the Yukon area, and was a member of the territorial council. As the force reported directly to Ottawa, Steele had almost free rein to run things as he chose, always with an eye towards maintaining law, order and Canadian sovereignty. He moved to Dawson City in September 1898.