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As folk heroes, the Mounted Police became the expression of the country's aspirations. One indication of the Mounties' significant role in Canadian culture is the 150 early-twentieth century novels in which they were featured. Tales of adventure and romance, these formula pieces pitted the lone heroic Mountie, "intelligent," "handsome," "kind," – and invariably British-born – against numerous and dangerous foes. Endurance, self-discipline and sense of duty ensured that the resourceful Mountie won all contests. What set these stories apart from other popular folk tales was that the hero emerged victorious not merely because of his personal qualities, but also because he represented the force of British law, parliament, and the Church of England. These fictionalised accounts of the Mounted Police and their activities were inaccurate in much of their detail. In actuality, the force's officers included Roman Catholics as well as Anglicans. Nearly 80 percent, moreover, were Canadian-born. However, even the men not born in Britain were well-educated military men from the upper strata of Eastern Canadian society. As the novels indicated, in all important areas, the officers embodied the values of British gentlemen. The research of historian R. C. Macleod indicates that while mounted policemen in the other ranks had more diverse origins, they absorbed their officers' attitudes. Macleod maintains that all ranks believed that their duties included integrating new settlers into Canadian society, and that this society was more orderly and law-abiding than others were. He suggests that the early popularity and continuing symbolic significance of the Mounted Police may be two measures of the Mounties' success in imposing their view of the West on the general public. Other historians, such as T. Thorner and Hugh Dempsey, have suggested that southern Alberta citizens were not, in fact, innately law-abiding, and that the Mounted Police were hard pressed to make them so. Thorner and Dempsey argue that the existence of crime and violence was more reflective of frontier society than of any shortcomings of the police. They insist that within the limitations imposed by their small numbers, relative to the large area of patrol, and by jurisdictional clashes between federal and territorial authorities in urban centres like Calgary, the police fulfilled their official and perceived peacekeeping mandates well. |
