North-West Mounted Police in the Canadian north
The history of the North-West Mounted Police in the Canadian north describes the activities of the North-West Mounted Police in the North-West Territories at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th. The mounted police had been established to control the prairies along the Canadian-United States border in 1873, but were then also deployed to control the Yukon region during the Klondike Gold Rush, and subsequently expanded their operations into the Hudson Bay area and the far north. The force was amalgamated in 1920 to form part of the new Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who continued their predecessors' work across the region.
Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914)
In 1873, Prince Edward Island finally accepted the inducements on offer to pay its railway debts and buy-out of the last of the colony's absentee landlords. It joined the Dominion. Macdonald created the North-West Mounted Police in 1873 to help police the North-West Territories and assert Canadian independence over possible American encroachments into the sparsely populated land. The "Mounties" became legendary for keeping law and order in the West.