Canada: Modern Mounties

If there is one Canadian institution that every American knows about it is the Mountie—that strapping, red-coated fellow who always gets his man, and at the sight of a woman will break into Oh, Rose Marie, I Love You. Any Canadian knows better. Last week the Mounties got a new chief, George B. McClellan, a Mountie for 31 of his 55 years, whose workaday uniform is chocolate-brown, not scarlet and blue. His horse went out to pasture long ago, and his policeman’s beat covers a far more complicated world than thieving trappers and primitive Eskimos.

Spies & Dope Peddlers. Founded in 1873 to bring law and order to Canada’s Wild West, the Mounties (who now number 8,500) are actually Canada’s G-men, T-men, Secret Servicemen, revenue, post office and counter-intelligence agents all rolled into one. McClellan himself never served in the frozen Yukon; he spent his years tracking down moonshiners in Alberta, battling the violent hunger marches of the Depression ’30s and ferreting out Communist spies in the ’40s. When Russian Cipher Clerk Igor Gouzenko walked out of the Soviet embassy in 1945 ready to tell about the Red spy ring, McClellan was the man who took him into protective custody. The Mounties cracked the ring wide open; Gouzenko and his family still live “somewhere in Canada,” still under Mountie protection.

Canada’s Communists can be sure that other Mounties are sprinkled through their secret cells. As far back as 1921, Mountie John Leopold went underground to become Jack Esselwein, Socialist house painter and first secretary of the Communist Party in Regina, Sask. In the old days an aspiring Mountie had to be 6 ft. tall, or better. But that was like wearing a “Kick Me” sign in the shadowy world of plain-clothes police work. Today’s Mounties only have to measure an “average” 5 ft. 8 in.—and they are busily infiltrating the Montreal heroin syndicates, ingratiating themselves with boastful Canadian income tax dodgers, posing as gullible game for confidence men.

Mounties chase seaborne and lake-borne smugglers in 32 R.C.M.P. vessels, from zippy motorboats to oceangoing patrol craft. There is a Mountie air force of 18 planes and helicopters that acts as a search and rescue service. In their grey stone Ottawa headquarters, the Mounties have access to the most modern anti-crime laboratories, plus bank upon bank of filing cabinets filled with criminal identification data. Mounties serve as provincial police in eight Canadian provinces (all except Quebec and Ontario), are the municipal cops in 120 towns and villages, and nab thousands of speeders yearly on Canada’s highways.

Servant & Demigod. Every Mountie is still issued the cherished dress uniform red coat—for parades, for Parliament guard duty, for appearances in court. All recruits still learn to sit a horse, and in the snowbound north the Mountie is still king, servant, and demigod. There are only some 200 of them in the Yukon and Northwest Territories these days, and they talk about all the rest of the service as something slightly distasteful “on the outside.” No wonder. In their arctic world they are the postmasters, game wardens, tax collectors, licensing agents, oath administrators, notaries public, firemen, immigration officers, fur pelt inspectors, dispensers of relief funds, dentists, doctors and midwives. Acting as a policeman, a Mountie once brought in an Eskimo murderer; as examining magistrate, he committed the Eskimo for trial; as jailer, he kept him under lock and key; as sheriff, he supervised the Eskimo’s hanging; as coroner, he certified the Eskimo’s death.

The townspeople of Aklavik (pop. 600) in the Northwest Territories do not think that the picture hanging behind the altar of the Anglican Cathedral is out of the ordinary. The painting shows three wise men visiting the manger of the Christ child in Bethlehem. Instead of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the magi bringing gifts are the trader, the northern priest—and the Mountie.