Policing the plains

by R. G. MacBeth

INDIAN TEPEE.

DOG-TRAIN.

I recall a story in that connection—a missionary story. It is in place here because no one knew so well as the Police what a large part in preserving peace in the rebellion time was played by missionaries like John McKay, of the Mistawasis Reserve near Carlton, John McDougall, of Morley, George McKay, of Prince Albert, Père Lacombe and others. In the partnership of the Police and the missionaries the law and the gospel wrought together for good ends. The story was told a group of us by John McKay, to whose influence over Chief Mistawasis was largely due the fact that that powerful Cree chief, whose reserve was almost within sound of the guns of Duck Lake, did not join in with Chief Beardy and Dumont. After the rebellion, Mistawasis was one of the chiefs taken east as a reward for his loyalty. I recall seeing some of them being driven around eastern cities in cabs to see the sights. They preserved the usual stoical silence and evinced no surprise, but they missed nothing and when they got back home their tongues were loosed and for many a day they recited their experiences and told the story of the white man's great cities and manifest power.

Mistawasis, on his way home, met John McKay on the plains, and they sat around the camp fire late that night as the chief poured out his recollections of what he had seen. One thing had puzzled the Indian, though he had thought much over it. "The strangest thing that happened," said Mistawasis, "was in Ottawa, where some good people had a missionary meeting at a house, and they were singing songs, and a lady played on the singing machine (piano). At last they asked me and Star Blanket to sing. We both were ashamed, because we could not sing much. But I told Star Blanket I would sing what the missionary taught us out on the plains and I began, and all of a sudden the lady ran to the singing machine and began to play and then they all joined in and I was leading the whole band." "Now," continued the Chief, "how did they know in Ottawa the same thing you taught us out at the reserve in Saskatchewan?" And then John McKay told him the tune was "Old Hundred," which all good people knew, and that the company sang it in English words while he sang in Cree, but that they were singing the same thing. This delighted Mistawasis, who felt that he and the white people there were really one in the deep experiences of life. And that meant brotherhood to him.

But all the Indians were not like "Big Child," as this chief's name meant, and so the Mounted Police had strenuous work for some years after the rebellion, when scarcely a thousand of them had to patrol and guard a territory twenty times as large as some European kingdoms.

From the ably written and graphic Police reports for the years following the rebellion, one can visualize the changing conditions of the country. The outbreak had undesignedly advertised the wide West. The thousands of men who had come out on military duty, having spied out the wondrous fatness of the land, had gone back to the east to become unofficial immigration agents by telling what they had beheld. And so the tide of humanity began to flow over the plains towards the setting sun. This means that the buffalo were gone for all time and that game generally would become a precarious means of existence, that the ranch and the farm would supersede the open plain, that settlers would need much guidance as well as protection, that the Indians would have to be taught to stay on their reserves and make a living there, and that the half-breeds, who were no lovers of agriculture, would have to be weaned from their nomadic inclinations. In some parts of the vast country, as at Prince Albert, Superintendent A. B. Perry, who took charge there after the rebellion, states, "The general attitude of the half-breeds and Indians was one of regret for what had happened." All was going well, but in some other quarters there was a sort of sullenly defiant spirit abroad which took all the tact and the courage of the Police to overcome. It was fortunate that the officers and men of the Police had from the beginning so commended themselves to the Indians and half-breeds as exponents of fair play that these natives of the country never seemed to hold the Police responsible for the errors, delays or mistakes of any government.

In speaking of Police reports I would like the reader to bear in mind that, in addition to the reports furnished by the combatant officers generally so classified, commissioners, superintendents, inspectors and others, some of the most remarkable and important documents sent forward to the proper authorities, through the usual channels, were written by the surgeons and their assistants, and also by the veterinary surgeons. Men and their troop horses were companions on the long trails, and they both had to be cared for by sympathetic experts in each line. It was vastly important that both should be kept fit if the work was to be done, and of the two the men themselves were always more anxious about their horses than about their own comfort. Hence these health-preserving specialists were of peculiar value for the efficiency of the corps. And as they were men of education as well as keen observers, their reports bore the evidences of research, which made them treasuries of information.

As an indication of the way in which the Police showed that they were in the country not only to preserve law and order but to guide settlers in the interests of the country's development as well as for their own welfare, I quote from one of Commissioner Lawrence Herchmer's annual reports this valuable statement in 1886: "As a rule too little fall ploughing is done in the North-West, and there is consequently too much hurry amongst the farmers in the spring and large tracts of land are sown, but not sufficiently worked—nearly all the farmers work too much land for their strength. Very few of them made any use of the manure from their farmyards, and although at nearly all Police posts, farms are quite close, I am not aware that any manure is drawn from our stables by any farmers." This statement was amply justified and very much needed, as those of us who knew the country then can affirm. Many had rushed west with the idea of getting rich "quick." They spread themselves over too much land, they neglected fall ploughing and ran the risk of getting caught with frost next season, and they thought they could save themselves time and money by doing without a fertilizer and taking all they could get out of the land. No doubt Herchmer and his thousand men preached the gospel of good farming with effect, for not many years passed before the flagrant mistakes he pointed out were remedied, to the great benefit of the country which has become in large measure the granary of the Empire.