ROYAL NW MOUNTED POLICE QUEBEC TERCENTENARY 1908 MAGIC LANTERN GLASS SLIDE

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RARE MAGIC LANTERN GLASS SLIDE: " MILITARY PARADE. SHOWING ROYAL NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE. FINEST MOUNTED FORCE IN THE WORLD. QUEBEC TERCENTENARY. 1908. "; MAGIC LANTERN GLASS SLIDE. KEYSTONE VIEW CO . MEADVILLE, PA. The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian police force. It was established in 1873, and in 1904 the name was changed to Royal Northwest Mounted Police . In 1920, it merged with Dominion Police to the current Royal Canadian Mounted Police . History Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald first began planning a permanent force to patrol the Northwest 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 100 to 150 mounted riflemen could maintain law and order. The Prime Minister first announced the force as the North West Mounted Rifles but concern from the United States of America fearing a military build up led the Prime Minister to rename the force the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) when formed in 1873. The police was established by an act of legislation from the Temporary North-West Council the first territorial government of the Northwest Territories . The Act was approved by the Government of Canada and established on May 23, 1873, by Queen Victoria , on the advice of her Canadian Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald , with the intent of bringing law and order to, and asserting sovereignty over, the Northwest Territories . The need was particularly urgent given reports of American whiskey traders, in particular those of Fort Whoop-Up , causing trouble in the region, culminating in the Cypress Hills Massacre . The new force was initially to be called the North West Mounted Rifles, but this proposal was rejected as sounding too militaristic in nature, which Macdonald feared would antagonize both aboriginals and Americans; however, the force was organized along the lines of a cavalry regiment in the British Army , and was to wear red uniforms. The NWMP was modelled directly on the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C.), a civilian paramilitary armed police force with both mounted and foot elements under the authority of what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . First NWMP commissioner, Colonel George Arthur French was a British artillery officer who was born in Co. Roscommon, Ireland, and would have been familiar the R.I.C. While the model of the Royal Irish Constabulary was influential in some respects (notably in designating ranks) British army traditions were strong. The Governor General explained that, "though nominally policemen, the men will be dressed in scarlet uniform and possess all the characteristics of a military force." However, the original idea was not forgotten. Assistant Commissioner A.G. Irvine visited Dublin to study the Constabulary in early 1880. When he became Commissioner in November of that year he began to apply the lessons he had learned there. The initial force, commanded by Commissioner French, was assembled at Fort Dufferin, Manitoba . They departed on July 8, 1874, on a march to what is now Alberta . The group comprised 22 officers, 287 men – called constables and sub-constables – 310 horses, 67 wagons, 114 ox-carts, 18 yoke of oxen, 50 cows and 40 calves. A pictorial account of the journey was recorded in the diary of Henri Julien , an artist from the Canadian Illustrated News , who accompanied the expedition. Their destination was Fort Whoop-Up, a notorious whisky trading post located at the junction of the Belly and Oldman Rivers . Upon arrival at Whoop-Up and finding it abandoned the troop continued a few miles west and established headquarters on an island in the Oldman, naming it Fort MacLeod . Historians have theorized that failure of the 1874 March West would not have completely ended the Canadian federal government's vision of settling the country's western plains, but could have delayed it for many years. It could also have enco... read more

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