Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was formed in 1920 by the merger of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP), founded in 1873, with the Dominion Police founded in 1868. The former was originally named the North West Mounted Police (NWMP), and was given the "Royal" prefix by King Edward VII in 1904. Much of the present-day organization's symbolism has been inherited from its days as the NWMP and RNWMP, including the distinctive Red Serge uniform, paramilitary heritage, and mythos as a frontier force. The RCMP-GRC wording is protected under the Trade-marks Act.
Despite its name, the RCMP is no longer an actual mounted police force, with horses only being used at ceremonial events. The predecessor NWMP and RNWMP had relied on horses for transport for most of their history, though the RNWMP was switching to automobiles at the time of the merger.
North-West Mounted Police
The first appearance of the mounted police in fiction occurred in Joseph Collin's "The Story of Louis Riel", published in 1885. The police soon became a popular subject for writers, with over 150 novels about the force and its successor, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, being published between 1890 and 1940 across North America and Britain, along with magazine articles and publications for children. Gilbert Parker, James Curwood and Ralph Connor's works proved particularly popular and influential. Connor's "Corporal Cameron", published in 1912, set the tone for many later books with a tale of its initially dissolute protagonist's redemption through service with the police. Numerous poems were written about the force, with the best known probably being the "Riders of the Plains", which was first published in 1878 and later expanded upon several times.