WFHM4: "Saga of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police"

I've been gathering NWMP/RCMP-based comic book material for some time and have begun a page to display some of it. At the moment it's specific to cover art, but interior content will be added at some point in the future.

In continuing my search earlier today, the book below jumped out while I was on the Comic Book Plus website. Rather than tell the tales of a particularly gifted fictional Mountie, like Preston or King, it aims to teach about the challenges faced by these young men back in the day. 

It was published in 1942 by Centaur and was 64 pages in length, not counting covers. Touching on a wide variety of subject, it told of Napoleon, Wild Bill Hickock, Freddie Fitzsimmons' great game in baseball's World Series the previous year and, of course, the RCMP.

The Mountie pages follow. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find story/art credits.

There have been some touch ups to these pages, involving brightening the colours, slight rotation to straighten the images, and reducing the file size to tighten up the resolution a little bit. Those aside, all credit to CB+. Click on the pages for larger versions. 

"Cows Sniff Out Clues To Solve a Murder"

The tale below was copied from the May 22nd, 1973, Regina Leader-Post. The paper had an insert celebrating the 100th anniversary of the mounted police, at that time. My subject line was the headline used for this article.

I have, thus far, been unable to locate Sgt. Anderson's first name. Too bad, I would have loved to give credit where it's due!

Commando #4973: Mountie Hunter

Mountie Drew Fraser and Ross McKinley were partners and best friends. But when Drew enlisted in the Canadian Army, Ross was left behind.

However, Mountie life was far from quiet for Ross as the destruction of the war in Europe had extended its deathly claw all the way to Canada. Trains and supply lines were being targeted with ruthless precision, destroying vital supplies for the Allies. So ruthless in fact it spelt only one thing – sabotage!

Hunting the German spies would push Drew to the edge and force him to make the ultimate sacrifice. But a Mountie always gets his man...

So reads the solicitation text for the issue of Commando below. 

Commando being war-themed magazine dating back to the early 60s, I had not expected to come across a story involving the RCMP in its catalogue. Indeed, looking at this specific issue on Commando's website, no other book was revealed from clicking the "Mountie" tag included in its listing.

The issue has a publishing date of November 2016. I purchased the digital version for the Kindle. The story begins in 1940 and tells the tale of two friends on the force over the course of the next five years or so. It was written by Alan Hebden, drawn by Vicente Alcazar, and its cover is the work of Janek Matysiak. 

It doesn't break any new ground, and as the two join the military we get away from the Mountie adventure aspect for the most part. Since the war stories are Commando's stock and trade , that's hardly surprising.

Character development is not a key goal, either, since Commando has rarely used the same ones in multiple tales anyway. Several pages in, you'd still be hard-pressed to tell Ross and Drew apart.

Still, it's entertaining enough, and since Mountie fiction is difficult to come by these days, relatively speaking, it's a solid addition to a collection. 

Canmore NWMP Barracks

What follows is a partial copy from the Travel Alberta website in reference to a tourist attraction. I like to store these things in the event that a site is updated and some of the material modified or removed.

The Northwest Mounted Police barracks, built in 1893, is Canmore's third oldest building after the Canmore Hotel and the Ralph Connor Memorial Church.

The two Mounties stationed at Canmore constructed the barracks from logs cut with dovetail notches and chinking mixed from mud and straw. The Mounties also added an open veranda that was not part of the approved plan. Finally, they built a barn and a corral for their horses.

Inside, the barracks included a jail, two bedrooms, an office, and a kitchen. Usually, the Canmore barracks were home to only one member of the NWMP at a time, occasionally two.

In 1918, Corporal Charles H. Clarke moved into the barracks with his wife, Dora, and their five children. The Clarkes built an addition on the east side of the building in 1923 with a sitting room and another bedroom to better accommodate the family. The barracks are maintained as it was when the Clarkes lived there.

The NWMP abandoned the barracks in 1929. The Department of Interior, which held the lease, at first rented the barracks but then sold them in 1931. The Town of Canmore bought the barracks in 1989, and a year later, the Alberta government declared it a provincial historic resource. 

Zane Gray' King of The Royal Mounted in The Secret of Roaring River (Part 1)

The following images are copied from the Miles City (Montana) Star newspaper. These specific strips ran from March 7th to 17th in 1939.

The best method of viewing/reading is probably to click on the first image then select the next strip from the menu at the bottom of the page. 

I'll be back later with part two of this particular story. It was not the first King tale to be told in the Star, nor the last. The King strip had already been running for years by 1939 and would continue to do so for several more. I just happened to land on a good hop-on point.

December 10th, 1879: "Constable Grayburn's Death - A Mysterious Affair"

The article from the Regina Leader-Post copied early last month piqued my interest in Marmaduke Graburn's story. Graburn has the unfortunate distinction of being the first member of the NWMP to be killed in the line of duty.

Here again, record are somewhat unclear. The article copied in the June post and the one below from the December 10th, 1879, Ottawa Daily Citizen refer to the young man as "Grayburn". However, his name is most often displayed as "Graburn", without the "y" in the middle.

The Citizen's story relays information from the official report to the Minister of the Interior. It seemed like as good a source as any, since there are discrepancies in the various retellings of Graburn's misadventure. 

"The Fort That Kept The Canadian West From Going Wild"

The article below appeared in the Regina Leader-Post on June 22nd, 1981. I enjoyed the way it recapitulated Fort Walsh's short history, and that it provided a couple of point I'll want to research further (being constable Grayburn's murder and the reasoning behind the fort's location).