Maintain the right;: The early history of the North West Mounted Police, 1873-1900

John Day Co, 1973-01-01. Hardcover. Good/Good. 8x5x1. Jacket has heavy tattering to the edges, binding sound, internally clean. In his vivid account of the first twenty-five years of existence, Ronald Atkin shows that they had their share of misfits, incompetents, and drunkards. But stripped of the accumulated layers of legend and myth, their story and accomplishments are even more impressive. Hurried into existence late in 1873 to meet the threat of American whiskey traders and Indian unrest, the meagre force of three hundred men set off from Red River in July 1874 on an epic, and near disastrous march across the prairie emptiness to the foothills of the Rockies. The quickly routed the liquor traders and established peaceful relations with the Indians. From the time the first notion of such a force entered the head of the Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A Macdonald to the days of the Northwest rebellion and the Yukon gold rush, Mr. Atkin has used letters, diaries, reports and memoirs of the men who lived through these harsh and historic years to portray them as they actually were - men of flesh and blood, not just mere cardboard.