Policing the plains

by R. G. MacBeth

When in 1894 the first rumours of a probable rush into the region came to the outside, the Dominion Government felt that it was imperative that, in order to prevent lawlessness as well as to protect the interests of Canada in respect to the area within her boundary, the famous corps that had policed all the western frontiers should be represented immediately in the gold regions of the far north. And it was vitally important that a man should be sent in as officer commanding who would be specially fitted for such an unprecedented and extraordinary task. That man was found in the person of Inspector Charles Constantine, and he, taking with him other picked men in Inspector D. A. E. Strickland, Assistant Surgeon A. E. Wells, Staff-Sergeant Brown and twenty non-commissioned officers and constables, left for their distant field of action in the month of June. Strickland, who had done fine service on the plains, was to be of great value in the north on account of his knowledge of woodcraft logging, building and such like, in addition to his regular police duties. Wells was to have his hands full, since for some time he was, as some one said, the only doctor in a region as large as France and had, with sometimes inadequate means, to fight scourges of scurvy and the other diseases incident to food and climate. The men in the detachments were experienced and hardy enough to face anything that might turn up either in the shape of man or beast or difficult atmospheric conditions.

Constantine had served in the Red River expedition, and then, on account of special qualifications, had been made chief of the Provincial Police in Manitoba, where he was a terror to evil-doers. When the second Riel rebellion broke out and a volunteer regiment was being hurriedly raised in Winnipeg for service in the Big Bear country, Constantine, to the great delight of all of us who joined up with that regiment, became Adjutant. During that campaign he was always to the fore in every crisis and showed particular skill in rooting out men who were inciting the Indians to revolt. One morning of dense fog away beyond Fort Pitt our outside picket was fired on when I had charge of the guard. Calling out the guard and getting them under arms I went over to notify the officer commanding in the camp, but met Constantine with his forty-five ready for action. He had scented the alarm and did not wait for notice before getting out to see what was doing. A less keen-sighted or an excitable man would probably have shot anyone looming up through the fog, as I did from the direction of the shooting, but Constantine, though as quick as a flash, always had himself in hand. After the rebellion he became an Inspector in the Mounted Police, and had so approved himself as a wide-awake, intelligent and courageous officer that when the Yukon sprang up with its special demand he was appointed to be the pioneer in that far region of the north. Of medium height but very compactly built, Constantine was immensely strong, quick in his movements and capable of enduring tremendous strain. If it came to a rough and tumble he was as hard a man to handle as anyone would care to find. These qualities, along with his mental alertness and judicial training, made him a good man to send to a region where he had to exercise many functions until fuller government could be established. Constantine first of all made an investigating and exploratory trip accompanied by Staff-Sergeant Charles Brown. Leaving Moosomin in May in obedience to orders to report in Ottawa for special duty, Constantine received instructions to proceed to the Yukon and make recommendations as to general administration. He accordingly left for the north and by crossing over by the Lewes-Yukon he reached Fort Cudahy on August 7, where he remained about a month before returning by St. Michaels and arriving at Victoria in October. He reported elaborately on the resources, climate and possibilities of the whole country. This was in 1894, and in consequence of Constantine's grasp of the situation and his talent for organization he was sent back next year with the officers and men above indicated, arriving at Fort Cudahy on July 24.

It was well that Strickland was a practical logger and builder, for quarters had to be provided. It was a land of extremes, with intense cold in the winter and equally intense heat in the summer. Constantine speaks of an occasional 75 degrees below zero in the winter and the heat as high as 120 degrees. In another report he writes, "The miners have a simple method of determining when it is too cold to work by hanging a bottle containing mercury outside the house. When it freezes it is time to remain inside." We should rather think so. Albeit, the climate is dry and healthy when people are prepared for it and are not found fasting after prolonged exposure.

It was in the hot weather that Strickland and his picked men went up the Yukon amid the heat and flies, cut down the logs and floated them to where Fort Constantine was built before the extreme cold struck the region. The men who stayed with Constantine had cleared the ground of moss and brush with great effort. The moss varied from one to three feet in depth. Below it was ice, so that the report says the men worked a good part of the time up to their knees in water. "If it was not 90 degrees in the shade it was pouring rain." Up the river Strickland and his men were getting out the logs as stated, but without any appliances except their own physical strength and energy. Only men of the finest type could have stood it, and the Inspector gives them unstinted praise.

The buildings were rushed up as stated before the winter. They were chinked with moss and the roof covered with earth, there being no time to saw boards to cover. All this was not so bad for the winter, but when the spring came the men who had fought the intense cold were subjected to another kind of hardship. Constantine says in a later report, "During the heavy rains the roofs leaked so badly that oil sheets and tarpaulins had to be put up over all the beds to keep them dry. The earth roofs of this country will only absorb a certain amount of moisture and when the limit is reached, a deluge of very dirty water is the result." Evidently the men were not having a picnic.

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.

Constantine got ready for it, strongly recommending the establishment of civil courts, the appointment of an administrator and law-officer and the reinforcing of the Police so that they could be scattered up and down the new mining areas as required. A post called Fort Herchmer, after the Commissioner, was built at Dawson which was to become the big centre shortly, and the Police Force was augmented by the arrival of two small detachments under command respectively of two well-known officers, Inspectors Scarth and Harper. And not any too soon were these precautions taken, for Constantine lets light in on the kind of people who began to head for the diggings when he says in his graphic way, "A considerable number of people coming in from the Sound cities appear to be the sweepings of the slums and the result of a general jail delivery. Heretofore goods could be cached on the side of the trails and they would be perfectly safe, now a man has to sit on his cache with a shotgun to ensure the safety of his goods. Cabins in out-of-the-way places are broken into and everything cleaned out." That was before the newcomers realized that the Mounted Police were to the fore. Constantine and his men kept on their track and perpetrators of ordinary offences were astonished when they were run out of the country in order to save food for the decent people who were willing to work without preying on others. And the Inspector gives parting salute to the deported individuals by saying, "Many of them could well be spared in any community, for the rush had brought in toughs, gamblers, lewd women and criminals of almost every type, from the petty thief to the murderer."

But Constantine gave them no quarter, and so it was that by the time the big stampede took place into Dawson and the Creeks it had become known far and wide that the Mounted Police would stand no nonsense. So the way was made simpler, though not at any time a sinecure, for those who followed the intrepid pioneers in the scarlet tunic. But coming at the summit of an active and strenuous life, the exposure, responsibility and general wear and tear of his Yukon years undermined the once rugged strength of Constantine. He was transferred to the prairie after nearly four years in the Yukon, but never fully recovered his vigour. His leaving the Yukon had a very human side. The miners showed their appreciation of his manly, straightforward character by crowding in and presenting him and his wife and boy with nuggets of gold and indicating in their diffident but genuine way that if ever any of them needed help they could count on their Yukon friends for anything required. Which reminds us that tribute should be paid to the wives of these policemen who braved the wilderness places of the west and north to be helpers to their husbands and to make their homes centres of social refining influence where such influences were of untold value.