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.
North-West Mounted Police
Many popular novels were published about the mounted police from 1885 onwards, and in the 20th century over 250 films were made, along with radio and television portrayals. The police were depicted as courageous, disciplined and chivalrous, displaying a sense of fair-play as they brought their suspects to justice. Historians, working from initially limited public records and chronicles, wrote similarly eulogistic accounts of the mounted police, but as new archives became available in the 1970s, more critical and analytic accounts of the force were produced. The force heavily influenced public perceptions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which used the North-West Mounted Police's image and history to help make the modern police a popular Canadian national symbol.