While the idea of men in red jackets riding around on horses is a caricature of the real organization, this video is a little tongue in cheek speaking to the "horseman" in all of us ... riding forever.
Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald first began planning a permanent force to patrol the North-West Territories after the Dominion of Canada purchased the territory from the Hudson's Bay Company. Reports from Army officers surveying the territory led to the recommendation that a mounted force of between 100 to 150 mounted riflemen could maintain law and order. The Prime Minister first announced the force as the North West Mounted Rifles. However, officials in the United States raised concerns that an armed force along the border was a prelude to a military buildup. Macdonald then renamed the force the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) when formed in 1873.
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One thing about these 100 to 150 men was the area each man patrolled was hundreds and thousands of square miles. When people want to come to Canada, they cannot imagine the solitude that our ancestors experienced. A distant relative was one of those men ending up at Old Crow, Yukon.
