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.
History of Canada
The Mounties' first large-scale mission was to suppress the second independence movement by Manitoba's Métis, a mixed blood people of joint First Nations and European descent, who originated in the mid-17th century. The desire for independence erupted in the Red River Rebellion in 1869 and the later North-West Rebellion in 1885 led by Louis Riel. Suppressing the Rebellion was Canada's first independent military action. It cost about $5 million and demonstrated the need to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway. It guaranteed Anglophone control of the Prairies, and demonstrated the national government was capable of decisive action. However, it lost the Conservative Party most of their support in Quebec and led to permanent distrust of the Anglophone community on the part of the Francophones.