1874
The North-West Mounted Police Head West
Fancy a historical cocktail? Why not try Whoop-Up Bug Juice — alcohol spiked with ginger, molasses and red pepper, coloured with black chewing tobacco, watered down and boiled. It was the sale of this delightful beverage that was one of the motives behind the 1874 March West of the newly-formed North-West Mounted Police.
When Canada assumed sovereignty over the vast western territories, it was an area largely without law or government presence. An observer noted “the region of the Saskatchewan is without law, order, or security for life or property; robbery and murder for years have gone unpunished; Indian massacres are unchecked even in the close vicinity of the Hudson Bay Company’s posts, and all civil and legal institutions are entirely unknown.” Twenty thousand natives still occupied the plains, and their plight in the wake of the buffalo hunt’s decline caused security concerns in Ottawa. The news of the 1873 Cypress Hills Massacre in which 30 Assiniboine were killed by American and Canadian wolf-hunters and whiskey traders who suspected them of horse theft, led to the recruitment of a mounted gendarmerie, the NWMP.
On this day in 1874 a procession of over 200 men with oxen and cattle, weaponry, 310 horses, and a three month supply of provisions advanced west with the intent of reaching southern Alberta, particularly Fort Whoop-Up, one of the earliest, largest, and best known American whisky trading posts. At La Roche Percée, Saskatchewan, the force split in half, with some diverting north to settle at a NWMP post there. The rest continued on to Fort Whoop-Up, which they reached in October, establishing their presence and pacifying the area.
