Larry Burden’s This Day in the RCMP

The achievements and contributions of the Force have been built upon the individual contributions of many past Veterans. These contributions have largely been forgotten.

Veteran Sgt. Larry Burden (#35982), who served  in “E” Division for 20 years, has spent many years researching and summarizing these achievements by specific date.  Nearly every day, Larry sends out an email message with a selection from his work in progress manuscript “This Day In The RCMP” to individuals interested in these historical notes.

In an effort to share his research to a large group, Larry has agreed to permit us to develop a webpage on our website. Each webpage will post Larry’s historical notations over the past week.

If you wish to contact Larry Burden or provide additional information about his research, please email him at larryburden8@gmail.com.


September 30th 

1899 – #10407/ O.346 Henry Asbjørn Larsen FRGS, one of the RCMP’s most famous men, was born on this day on the east coast of the Oslo Fjord at Fredrikstad, Norway. Larsen joined the RCMP as a Constable in 1928 and retired as a Superintendent in 1961. Larsen gained worldwide fame as the Captain of the RCMP St. Roch that saw him travel from west to east through the Northwest Passage in 1940-42 and then returning east to west in only one season. He commanded the supply boat for 12 summers and seven 7 winters patrolling the Western Canadian Arctic, supplying northern detachments. He was the recipient of several awards including the Polar Medal and Bar.

1905 – Charles King was executed for murder thus ending one of the most famous murder investigations in Saskatchewan history. 

In the fall of 1904 a well-to-do Englishman; Edward Hayward disappeared from his camp on Lesser Slave Lake. His partner Charles King became the prime suspect when local Indians reported seeing him with all of Hayward’s equipment and horses. Upon receiving the information from the Indians, #2353 Staff Sergeant Kristjan Fjeldsted “Andy” Anderson tracked King and arrested him on the suspicion of murder. 

King claimed that he and Hayward had separated and were to meet again at Sturgeon Lake. Not believing his story Anderson conducted a painstaking investigation that included tracing King’s trail from their base camp and sifting through the fragments of a huge campfire and finding fragments of bone. At his own expense, Anderson hired Indians to drain a nearby slough and sift through the muddy bottom. There he found; several buttons, a belt buckle, pocket knife and a piece of spinal vertebrae with a bullet embedded in it. He then compared the bullet to his suspect’s personal revolver and found that they were the same caliber. 

When the victim’s brother traveled from England to testify at the trial he identified the knife as the one he had given his brother as a gift, and that the buttons were similar to those used by a tailor in their home town. 

Anderson who was born in Iceland in 1866 and came to Canada in 1887 was one of the most experienced and respected policemen in the Canadian North. He joined the NWMP in 1889 and retired to pension in 1921. Both of his sons became members of the RCMP; #12655 Norman Anderson and # 12045 Charles Anderson. He died at the age of 82 in 1949. 

1974 – The RCMP riot squad officers are mobilized on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and stop 200 Native Indian protestors from entering the Parliament Buildings during the official opening of the first session of the 30th Parliament.

1994 – Retired Corps Sergeant Major #17872 Eric Bennie Young becomes the first Mountie to be awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. C/S/M Young spent 41 years in the RCMP, 21 of which was at the rank of Sergeant Major.


September 27th 

1901– The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York made an official visit to the Northwest Territories (then Saskatchewan and Alberta). At Regina, the Royal couple was met at the train station by a guard of five noncommissioned officers. They were then escorted to Government House in an entourage of eleven carriages by a troop of 33 men commanded by Superintendent #O.51 William Springfield Mildman Morris and #O.651/2 Inspector J. Emile Demers. #O.57 Inspector Albert. E.R. Cuthbert acted as the orderly officer and #03191 / O.136 Sergeant Major Frank Church as orderly N.C.O. 

In his report to the Governor General H.R.H. stated “I am especially anxious to record my appreciation of that splendid force, the Northwest Mounted Police. I had the pleasure of inspecting a portion of the corps at Calgary, and was much struck with the smart appearance of both men and horses, and with their general steadiness on parade. They furnished escorts throughout our stay in Western Canada; frequently horses for our carriages, and found the transport, all of which duties were performed with ready willingness and in a highly credible manner.”

1941– Honour Roll Number 69. #10982 Sergeant Louis Romeo Dubuc age 34 was killed in action, while flying an R.C.A.F. bomber to England from Ireland. 

After serving as a regular police constable for two years Louis Romeo Dubuc accepted a transfer to the Preventive Service patrols as an air observer in Atlantic Canada in 1933. When the RCMP created its own Aviation Section in 1937 Dubuc jumped at the chance to become one of its first members and as a pilot he worked all across the country. 

When war was declared in 1939, Sergeant Dubec along with the rest of the RCMP Air Division was transferred to the Royal Canadian Air Force. In the RCAF he was given the rank of Flight Lieutenant and in September 1941 he was assigned to Atlantic Ferry Command. On September 26, 1941 Dubuc was flying a bomber to England from Newfoundland. The flight was plagued with severe weather that deteriorated further upon reaching Ireland where he encountered heavy fog. As he attempted to circle the landing strip at Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland he hit an obstruction and crashed. All three men aboard were killed. 

He was buried with full military honours at the Old Chapel Roman Catholic Cemetery in Newry, County Louth. 

1971 – Any time you walk away from a plane crash it can be considered a good day. The RCMP Otter “CF-MPZ” experienced a low-level engine failure while flying near Hind’s Lake, Newfoundland. The pilot #22129 / O.1552 Donald Klancher did his best to find a decent landing strip to put his plane down on but there was none to be had. The plane went down into the forest and slammed into a tree. 

Fortunately he and his three passengers #21300 Bernard Johnston, #23796 Robert MacKinnon and #27561 Cst. B.S. Sibley all survived. The Otter was completely destroyed in the fire caused by the crash.

1996 – Residents of British Columbia were shocked when the media reported that someone had gone into the Kelowna General Hospital and kidnapped a newborn baby boy. 

The day after the Kelowna Detachment received a tip and Police Dog Handler #31413 Constable Gerald Guiltenane and his partner ‘ARGO’ located the three-day-old infant, Denver Giroux in a wooded area near Westbank, BC where his kidnappers had abandoned him. Darlene Hucal and two male young offenders were subsequently charged with kidnapping. Six years later Guiltenane lost his home in the Okanagan Mountain Park fire that destroyed 244 homes in the Kelowna area.

 


September 26th

1903 – Honour Roll Number 27. #1102 S/Sgt. Arthur F.M. Brooke age 37 drowned when fording the Bow River on the Blackfoot Reserve, N.W.T. 

Sergeant Brooke and Indian Scout, Special Constable Frank McMaster known as “Red Wolf” were traveling with interpreter J.A. Beaupre and Justice of the Peace J. Didsbury to Dunbow from Gleichen. The men were looking for evidence in the death of an Indian named “Wolfchild” who was a suspect in a horse theft case involving Mr. John Clarke of Crowfoot. 

At approximately 6:00 pm the group decided to ford the river near “Axes Camp” instead of taking the ferry over the river in order to save ten miles of travel. When they approached the river S/Cst. Red Wolf riding his own horse entered the water ahead of the wagon team driven by Beaupre. Staff Sergeant Brook was sitting beside him and JP Didsbury was riding in the back of the wagon. As they proceeded across the river, Red Wolf yelled back to Beaupre that the river was rising and Brooke told them to continue because they had to get across. When Red Wolf got to the middle of the river his pony stepped into a deep hole and he fell off but managed to catch hold of the animal’s tail and held on until the pony swam to shore. While he was struggling to stay afloat, Red Wolf heard shouting from the men in the wagon but when he made it to shore and looked back there was no sign of the men or the wagon team.

The wagon and its drowned horses were found three miles downriver the following day. It appears that all three men drowned when the wagon reached deep water and the wagon began to lurch and the men fell into the river and were swept away.

On October 27,1903, the body of Staff Sergeant Arthur Brooke was found two and a half miles downstream by a native named “Two Guns” who received a $20 reward. Brooke’s pocket watch had stopped working at 6:10 pm. 

Brook had twenty years’ service with the Mounted Police and was married with two young children.

1957 – Honour Roll Number 115. 

#18200 Joseph Thor Thompson age 27 was killed as a result of a passenger aircraft landing at Lethbridge Airport and crushing his police car. 

Constables #18200 Joseph Thor Thompson, #19621, Eugene Oleksiuk, #16784 Edward Mueller and #14042 Corporal Harold Berry were traveling from their detachment at MacLeod Alberta in a police car to their annual revolver qualification shoot in Lethbridge. The weather and road conditions were good for what should have been an uneventful trip. Constable Thompson was driving with Oleksiuk beside him while the other two officers rode in the back seat. 

As they proceeded south on Highway #5 by the Lethbridge Airport they had no way of knowing that a Trans-Canada Airlines DC 3 was on approach to the airport coming in for a landing over their heads. For reasons unknown, the aircraft was flying lower than it should have been and as it passed over the police car, the landing gear crushed the roof and the drivers’ door of the passing police car. The damage was so severe that the entire drivers’ side of the vehicle was compressed to the top of the front seat. The car spun out of control and ended up in a ditch a half mile down road from the point of impact. 

Constable Thompson received a fractured skull and a broken neck. Constable Oleksiuk was knocked unconscious and went into shock but soon revived. Neither policeman in the rear seat was injured. Thompson was rushed to the hospital in Lethbridge where a Calgary neurosurgeon did his best to stabilize the young man. He was then transferred to the Colonel Belcher Hospital in Calgary where he remained in a coma for over two and a half months. When he woke from the coma it was apparent that he had suffered severe irreversible brain damage and was classified “wholly incapable of looking after himself” and permanently disabled. 

In May of 1958 Constable Thompson was transferred to the Deer Lodge Hospital in Winnipeg so he could be closer to his parents and siblings who lived in Gimli. He was eventually moved to the Selkirk Mental Hospital where he died in his sleep on December 18, 1961, two days after his 27th birthday. 

Joseph Thor Thompson had joined the RCMP on May 11, 1953. He was fluent in Icelandic and had a promising career ahead of him. He was buried in the Community Cemetery in Gimli Manitoba. 

His three companions returned to duty and all eventually retired from the RCMP, each having achieved the rank of Sergeant.

1959 – A Pair of British Empire Medals (BEM) and two Queens Commendations were awarded on this day. 

Awarded the BEM was:  #18160 Alvin Thomas Millhouse BEM (See November 3, 1955) and #17909 Constable Hugh Dickson Bowyer BEM, (See November 29, 1955) for their actions in saving lives in a gypsum quarry in Windermere, BC In the same ceremony the Queens Commendations for bravery awarded to #16513 Laurence Martin (See November 3, 1955) and #16518 Corporal Kenneth Marshall McHale (See November 29, 1955) 

1963 – FLQ terrorists hold up a branch of the Royal Bank in Montreal. 

1971 – Honour Roll Number 145. 

#22976 Constable Harold Stanley Seigel age 28 was shot and killed at a barricade incident at a private residence, at Iles des Chenes, Manitoba.

A twenty-one-year-old mentally disturbed man named Jean Charles D’Auteuil had locked himself in the bathroom of his parent’s house with a .22 caliber rifle. After refusing to come out of the room and firing a shot through the door, his father phoned the police. 

Constables Seigle and #24455 Floyd Wilbert Rushton and #15397 Staff Sergeant Edward J. M. Webdale rushed to the scene and Webdale proceeded to try and reason with the gunman over a loud hailer. After trying to reason with the deranged man for over two hours athey decided to fire a canister of tear gas into the house in hopes of getting D’Auteuil to surrender. As the Staff Sergeant prepared to fire the tear gas canister, the two constables positioned themselves around the house. Webdale fired the tear gas into the house and moments later D’Auteuil responded by firing a shot from his rifle. Shortly thereafter Constable Seigel was found lying face down by the garage with a bullet wound to his head. He was immediately carried to a police car and rushed to hospital but he died en-route. Jean Charles D’Auteuil was taken into custody several hours later and was charged with murder but was found mentally unfit to stand trial. Cst. Harold Stanley Seigel was born in Pembroke Ontario, and he and his wife Gail were expecting their second child when he was killed. He was buried at the Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens in Winnipeg. 

1978 – Former Corporal #4332 Frederick Bard celebrated his 100th birthday.

#04332 Fred Bard was born at Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, England on September 1877, and after serving in the Boer War he decided to move to Australia via Canada and decided to stay in Canada after meeting up with a war buddy he stayed and started working in the coal mines near Estevan Saskatchewan. After witnessing and reporting a shooting he accepted the advice of the investigator and joined the RNWMP on February 20, 1905. 

He resigned after two years’ service so he could get married but reenlisted in 1914 and was promoted to Corporal shortly thereafter. After failing to get sent overseas to fight in WWI, Bard purchased his discharge for $100 and enlisted with the Lord Strathcona Horse and served in France. After recuperating from being wounded in action, Bard became the tail gunner for Flying Ace Billy Bishop VC. 

At war’s end he re-engaged in the RNWMP but left shortly thereafter to seek a better paying job as a cook so he could support his growing family. Bard died at the ripe old age of 102.

1981– Only 20 Crosses of Valour have ever been issued since its creation in 1972 and #26112 Corporal Robert Gordon Teather, CV is the only member of the RCMP to have been awarded Canada’s highest civilian medal for valour. 

On this day, in the early morning hour’s two members of the “E” Division (British Columbia) Underwater Recovery Team, corporals Robert Teather and #26483 Timothy J. Kain rushed to the scene of an overturned sixteen-metre fishing vessel. 

The “Respond” had collided with a freighter near the mouth of the Fraser River, and capsized in the treacherous waters of the Georgia Strait with two crewmen trapped inside the vessel. The two police divers were transported to the scene in a Coast Guard hovercraft and immediately conducted an exploratory dive in the dark to assess the situation. What they found was a treacherous labyrinth of nets, cables and debris restricting access to the boat. It was determined that only one man could enter the sinking vessel and attempt a rescue. Though neither experienced diver had ever been faced with this type of rescue, they quickly formulated a plan. 

Today, “Octopus regulators” are commonplace, but in 1981 they were not. So the men cannibalized Corporal Kain’s regulator and attached his second stage mouthpiece and hose to Theather’s regulator, so it could supply air to a rescue victim. After modifying his regulator Corporal Teather returned to the water and crawled his way past the debris and entered the boat and then worked his way up to the engine-room in the bottom of the vessel in nearly zero visibility to the anxious crewmen.

Teather located the frightened men in an air pocket that was fouled by diesel fumes and explained how he intended to rescue them by swimming each one out of the boat using the modified “octopus’ regulator. One of the crewmen was a non-swimmer and was extremely frightened so Teather took some time to calm him down and reassured him that he would get him out safely. Once the man calmed down Corporal Teather had him put the regulator in his mouth and had him hang onto his back and then proceed to swim him through the boat. Half-way to safety, the crewman panicked and began to flail about and, in the process, knocked Teather’s face mask off and ripped his regulator out of his mouth. Corporal Teather managed to maintain his own composure and proceeded to physically fight the panicked man the rest of the way through the boat and up to the surface. On the surface Corporal Kain took charge of the excited man and swam him back to the hovercraft.

Though he was nearly drowned in the process, and had ingested a belly full of diesel laden sea water, Corporal Teather immediately returned to the engine-room and repeated the process with the second survivor. The two fishermen would likely have perished from drowning or asphyxiation had Corporal Teather not undertaken this exhausting and perilous rescue. 

After the rescue Teather had to be hospitalized for several days, due to his ingesting the diesel and seawater. The sad irony was that this was the last time Bob Teather would ever dive. He developed diabetes shortly thereafter and had to cease scuba diving. Teather went on to author several books on diving and his adventures in the RCMP. His knowledge of underwater forensics and recovery procedures was acknowledged internationally and he went on to become one of the foremost experts in the world in the field of underwater search and recovery. 

Both policemen were later recognized for their heroism, when on June 24, 1983 Corporal Robert Gordon Teather was awarded the Cross of Valour and Corporal Timothy J. Kain was awarded the Medal of Bravery. 

Bob Teather continued his career with the RCMP, but his battle with diabetes forced him to take a medical pension and retire after 28 years of service He died at the age of only 56 on November 15th 2004 from a heart attack, the result of complications with his diabetes. Tim Kain continued with the RCMP explosives disposal section until he retired in 2005. 

In addition to receiving Canada’s highest award for bravery Bob Teather was an accomplished author whose works included On Patrol with the Royal Canadian Mounted, The Scarlet Tunic, and Mountie Makers. He was also considered by most diving professionals to be the leading expert in the field of police diving procedures. He published two books on the topic; The Underwater Investigator and The Encyclopedia of Underwater Investigations, the latter having become part of the course training standards for most police divers. 

In 2011 in honour of his service to Canada, the government announced that one of the nine new Canadian Coast Guard Hero Class patrol vessels would be named after him. The Hero Class vessels were named for decorated soldiers, veterans and police officers and employees of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard. The CCGS Corporal Teather C.V. was built by Irving Shipbuilding Inc. and is 47 meters in length and has a displacement of 257 tons with a top speed of 25 knots. It was placed into service on Feb. 8th 2013.


Another rare day when I have no stories to tell so for a particular day on the calendar other than in 1873 Lieutenant Colonel W. Osborne Smith, the Commander of the militia in Manitoba, was appointed temporary Commissioner of The Mounted Police . So I hope you don’t mind  if I  share another story of the divine aspect of policing from my career.

At Least They Left Me My Oolichan

After a career in police work, I can honestly say that I would rather arrest a Native Indian, than most white guys. Hold on! I am not a racist, let me explain.

I have worked with a lot of natives over the years, and by and large they are pretty wonderful people, even if you have to take them into custody. Upon release I was usually received with dignity and humour. “Hey Larry, I hope I wasn’t in too much trouble last night, I’ll see you next Friday night! Can you give a ride back to the reserve? Whereas most other people are miserable jerks when they get released. Often full of vile and it was not uncommon to be growled at, cursed and belittled. No, I much preferred my native friends better.

I was on my way to the reserve ten miles from town to investigate a break and enter, which was something I seldom did, because on this reserve most of the folks were gainfully employed and the standard poverty and dreadful living conditions you find on many other reserves didn’t exist there.

The sun was setting when I arrived and I was met by a kindly old man who was waiting for me in the driveway. I got out of the car and approached him, and before I could say anything he said “Constable, do you have a flashlight”? I said I did and he replied “Good, because when they cleaned me out, they took the light bulbs too!”

We entered his house and I shone my flashlight around the room and he was right, no lightbulbs, and literally nothing else, no furniture no nothing. The walls had been ripped open and all of the copper pipes had been removed. The entire house had been stripped and the only thing remaining was a broken toilet and a broken down old refrigerator.

Needless to say I was shocked, but this kindly old man didn’t appear to be that upset. We looked in the cupboards and they were bare, we looked in the fridge and the only thing present was a large pickle jar filled halfway with what appeared to be bacon grease.

Upon seeing the jar of grease the old man grabbed it and stuck his fingers in the areas scooping up a sizeable dollop and was about to shove it in his mouth when he recognized that he had a guest in his home and it would be rude to not offer the first gob to me. So he politely said “You want some?” I politely declined stating I had just eaten supper before coming to his place. “Suit yourself” and he stuffed the greasy gob into his mouth.Then without missing a beat he said “They really cleaned me out, but at least they left me my Oolichan!”

At the time I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked him what Oooo-lii-kin was. You don’t know what an Oolichan is, you can’t be from around here, and I agreed and told him I was from New Brunswick, all the way over on the other side of Canada.

“Oh, I see” and he took the time to tell me about the fish and how important it was to the Coast Salish people.An Oolichan (Thaleichthys pacificus) is a member of the smelt family and is also known as a candle fish because it is so full of oil, that you can literally ignite a dried one and it will burn like a candle. But the Ooilchan is  seldom eaten as meat, instead it is rendered for its oil which becomes an edible grease that can be stored for several months. Much like its cousin the Capelin fish (Mallotus villosus) in Newfoundland, they migrate by the millions, up the coastal rivers near the end of February to spawn and die, resulting in a free for all between the seals, bears, eagles and the humans. The coastal peoples of British Columbia have looked forward to the Oolichan season for a thousand years and the grease remains an important part of their diet and culture.

“You know what really makes me mad, Constable?”, “What makes me mad is they took my rain suit too.” This kindly old man was a fisherman, and we get a lot of rain in coastal BC in the winter, and a rain suit is important. My heart was breaking for him, and I couldn’t fathom why anyone would subject him to this pain. I asked him if he had any idea who would have done this to him, but he simply shook his head and ate some more oilcan grease. Before leaving for town, I gave him my flashlight and promised him I would do my best to find the culprit that cleaned him out.

A couple days later I returned to Kititmaat Village and before I started knocking on doors, I went to see the old man. “Oh Constable, it’s nice to see you and thanks for the flashlight, it came in handy”, no problem I replied and told him I was there to follow up on the break and enter. “Oh, don’t worry” he said “I found out who did it and I got my rain suit back.” He then went on to say that his daughter and her boyfriend had cleaned him out because he had refused to give them his pension cheque! But everything was fine, and he forgave her and the Band Council was going to fix his house. I tried to convince him to press criminal charges, but he wasn’t interested, and thanked me for caring. Seldom have I witnessed an act of forgiveness like that and to witness that aspect of the divine stays with you even forty years later.


September 24th.

1886 – The first steamship the “Wrigley” begins regular service on the Mackenzie River. 

1903 – The NWMP establishes a detachment at Cape Fullerton on Hudson Bay. 

1942 – The Alaska Highway was opened at Contact Creek, Yukon 305 miles north of Fort Nelson, BC. 

1952 – Six boxes of  gold bullion worth $300,000 were stolen from an unguarded building at Malton Airport while awaiting shipment to Montreal. The gold was never recovered and was believed to have been flown to New York in a private plane and then smuggled to Hong Kong.

1988 – Star of Courage, #38476 Troy Duane Gross SC.

When Constable Troy Gross arrived at the scene of an overturned tanker truck near Wainwright, Alberta he realized that the unconscious driver was trapped inside, with gasoline flowing from the damaged tanker. Constable Gross smashed the windshield and reached inside and turned off the ignition. He then proceeded to remove the windshield from the cab and climbed inside to assist the driver. With the help of another constable and two ambulance attendants who had arrived on scene, he began to maneuver the driver out through the smashed windshield opening. 

During the extraction the victim became lodged in the opening but was eventually removed and transported to safety. For his heroism in the face of grave danger Constable Troy Duane Gross was awarded Canada’s second highest medal, the Star of Courage. 

1990 – Parrsboro Nova Scotia constables, M.W. Johnson and #29761 C.C Morton earned Commanding Officers Commendations for bravery after a three-hour standoff with an armed and emotionally disturbed man who was threatening to kill himself. The two constables eventually convinced the man to turn over his weapon and surrender. 


September 23rd 

1872 – #3058 Arthur Herbert Lindsay Richardson VC was born in Southport, Lancashire, England. 

Richardson, a Sergeant in the NWMP took a leave of absence to serve with the Lord Strathcona Horse Regiment in the Boer War. He later received the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. (See July 5, 1900) After the war returned to the NWMP and retired a Sergeant Major. He returned to his native England and died on December 15th 1922 and is buried in Liverpool. 

1904 – The Royal North West Mounted Police established a post at Fullerton on Hudson Bay near Chesterfield Inlet. 

1907– After two years of hard work the Mounties completed a 2.5-meter wide trail that they hacked out of the wilderness by hand that ran from Edmonton, Alberta to Dawson, Yukon. 

1964 – The end of an era occurred when Constables #21481 James Innes and #21750 / O.1164 Robert Hannam locked the doors to Herschel Island Detachment. 

The Mounted Police first established a detachment there with #2218 /O.156 Sergeant Francis Joseph Fitzgerald. (See Lost Patrol December 21, 1910) on August 7, 1903. The police presence was sent there primarily to investigate reports that American whalers were debauching local Eskimos with liquor and to assert Canada’s sovereignty at the western gateway to the Canadian Arctic. Herschel Island was the favoured wintering location for American whaling fleets and Canada was concerned about the activities of American whalers after the judicial council arbitrating the border dispute over the location of the Alaskan border ruled in favour of the United States. 

The original detachment was two rented sod huts. The detachment may be gone but the grave of Constable # 5548 Alexander J. Lamont remains. He died from typhoid he contracted while caring for the northern explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson who survived and lived for another 44 years. (See February 16, 1918) 

1974 – FLQ (Front de libération du Québec) terrorist Bernard Lortie was found guilty of the 1970 kidnapping of Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. He was later sentenced to twenty years in prison but was paroled only seven years later. Laporte was found murdered and dumped in the trunk of a car.

1974 – While patrolling south of Nelson BC #26104 Constable John E.A. Nykiforuk and Auxiliary Constable Ron Giffen were dispatched to the scene of a stabbing. Upon their arrival they were advised that there was no stabbing but instead a four-year-old girl named Corinne Phillipoff had died. 

Constable Nykiforuk rushed to the child and examined her for a pulse and found a very faint heartbeat. He immediately cleared her airway that resulted in her breathing again. She was then rushed by ambulance to the Kootenay Lake District hospital where she made a complete recovery. 

The erroneous report of a stabbing had been made by the child’s Russian grandmother who was in a state of shock over the ordeal and in her broken English mistakenly told the dispatcher that someone had been stabbed. Constable Nykiforuk’s clear thinking and prompt action saved the child’s life and as a result he was awarded the Priory of St. John Ambulance Meritorious Certificate. 

1976 – In the early morning hours of his shift #27681 Constable Raymond S. Steen heard gunshots near the Detachment in Steinbach, Manitoba. When he went to investigate he found a well-known local criminal who had recently been released from prison wandering the streets with a stolen .308 caliber rifle and taking random shots. Taking cover under a small footbridge Steen identified himself as a police officer and ordered the gunman to drop his weapon. The gunman’s response was that he wanted to kill a “pig” and had no intention of throwing down his weapon. With his revolver drawn, Constable Steen continued to talk to the gunman who continued to advance towards him. When the suspect was only 30 feet away he yielded to Steen’s reasoning and put down the rifle. When he was taken into custody Constable Steen seized over 60 rounds of ammunition from him. For displaying courage, tactfulness in apprehending an emotionally disturbed man without incident Constable Raymond Steen was awarded the Commanding Officer’s Commendation. 


September 22nd

2023 – Honour Roll Number 250

On this day #62890 Fredrick ‘Ric” O,Brien was shot and killed while assisting on the execution of a search warrant.

Criminal investigations often lead to other communities resulting in the local police providing assistance in different operations such as the execution of search warrants. On this day investigators from the neighbouring Ridge Meadows Detachment were in the City of Coquitlam to follow up on an investigation involving a drug related matter that occurred in Maple Ridge, BC. At 10:00 AM they entered the premises and an altercation occurred between the police and 25 year old Nicholas Bellemare resulting in shots being fired.

Two policemen were shot in the altercation including Cpl. Colin Ryder who was shot and 51 year old Constable O’Brien who was mortally wounded and a third injured. In the exchange of gunfire the suspect was wounded and he and the other two men were transported to hospital where they later recovered from their wounds.

Ric O’Brien originally from Ottawa, ON had joined the RCMP later in life when he was 44 and had served all seven years of his service at Ridge Meadows Detachment. Prior to enlisting in the RCMP Ric had worked as an education assistant, a mental health worker, and a youth worker and was married with four children, a theme of service he continued becoming well-known for participating in neighbourhood schools, interacting with young people and offering support for various community causes. He had previously received a Commanding Officer’s Commendation and Provincial Medal for bravery. Nicholas Bellemare was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder with a firearm.

 


September 22nd

Northwest Mounted Police estimate the Plains buffalo herd at one million animals; the last great herd moving south into the United States to be annihilated 

1877 – Treaty No. 7 was signed with the tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Government of Canada.

Chief Crowfoot (Isapo-Muxica) 1936-1890 lead the Blackfoot-speaking peoples the Siksika (Blackfoot), Piikani (Peigan) and the Kainai (Blood), along with their allies the Tsuu T’ina (Sarcee) along with their old adversaries the Nakoda (Stoney) – in a meeting with Commissioner David Laird and Lt-Col James MacLeod of the NWMP.

At this meeting Treaty #7, is negotiated at So-yo-pow-ahx-ko (Ridge Under Water), today’s Blackfoot Crossing. The following day Canada’s last major first nations treaty was signed setting aside reserves of 69,039 sq km in the land south of Red Deer River and beside the Rocky Mountains and providing $12 annual payment per Indian; schools, farm instruction and social benefits. 

1988 –  Prime Minister Brian Mulroney makes a formal apology in the name of the Government of Canada for the World War II internment of Japanese-Canadians, and announces a $300 million compensation package. 


September 20th 

1924 – Arguably the greatest unsung heroes of the RCMP have been the wives of detachment men. Thousands of women have given up the comforts and luxuries of larger communities to follow their husbands into some of the most remote locations in Canada to live often dull and laborious lives providing unpaid services to the Force. The sacrifices of these women have gone largely unacknowledged and some have lost their lives in the process. One of the most tragic events that happened to a wife of a member happened to 32-year-old Margaret (Maggie) Agnes Warrner Clay(1892-1924), wife of #4279 Sergeant S. G. Clay the Detachment commander of Chesterfield Inlet NWT (now Nunavut).

On September 17th while her husband was away on patrol in the Thelon District, Mrs. Clay was attacked by a pack of sled dogs and knocked to the ground while she was walking on the beach near the detachment. By the time Constable #6316 Henry W. Stallworthy beat the dogs off of her; they had managed to strip most of the flesh from her right knee to her ankle. Stallworthy and #5718 Corporal Oliver George Petty carried her back to the detachment house where they did their best to treat her wounds, but little could be done to save her leg.

Throughout the night Maggie Clay begged the men to amputate her leg and by morning they realized that gangrene was going to set in and it would have to be removed. Unfortunately the closest medical doctor was over 1000 miles away, so the men were assisted by the local Roman Catholic priest who had some medical training and the Hudson’s Bay Company manager to perform the operation. At the insistence of Mrs. Clay, the two men agreed and signed a statement in which Corporal Petty assumed full responsibility and then hastily reviewed a book on surgery, while the two policemen sterilized the surgical instruments and dressings. The twenty-minute operation went successfully and Mrs. Clay rested easily after the surgery and got a good night’s sleep. To all she appeared to be recovering from the ordeal and was in good spirits throughout the day but towards evening she slipped into a coma and died shortly before midnight. The men held off burying her for three days in hopes that Sergeant Clay would return. He arrived back at the detachment three weeks later, unaware that his wife had died. She was buried in the lonely graveyard at Chesterfield Inlet (now Kivalliq Region, Nunavut. See (Find A Grave memorial # 198907508)

1972 – RCMP bomb squad defuses a letter bomb in a park after removing it from the Israeli Consulate. At the Israeli Embassy in Ottawa, the RCMP find explosives in one of six envelopes arriving from Amsterdam. 

The Arab terrorist group Black September was believed responsible. The day before in London, England an Israeli official was killed after opening a letter and it exploded. 

1977 – Sometimes proper recognition is delayed, as was the case for #18449 Staff Sergeant Patrick J. Dunleavy, who on this day received one of only two Merit Awards and certificates issued by the Commissioner of the RCMP for work he had pioneered in 1958. 

Dunleavy, the NCO in charge of the Field Identification Support Services was the first person to record different facial features on transparencies so they could be combined to create a composite drawing of a suspect. The initial kit was produced and distributed by the RCMP throughout Canada and to foreign police agencies. 

In the 1970’s he updated the kit because hairstyles, facial hair and eyeglasses had changed. The RCMP then licensed the kit to a commercial firm in the United States and the “Identi-Kit” became a global success. In addition to the Merit Award Staff Sergeant Pat Dunleavy was presented a cheque for $1500. 

1984 – Retired S/Sgt. #9912 W.L. Kennedy, age 92 received a blessing from His Holiness Pope John Paul II when he was visiting the Mother of Sisters of Charity in Ottawa. Sitting in his wheelchair after receiving the blessing he remarked with a note of satisfaction “This is the first time I’ve seen a pope”. 

Kennedy served in the RCMP from 1923 to 1949.

 

 


September 21st

September 21st is one of the few days in the commander I have not been able to find stories for, and people keep asking why I didn’t post for that day. When my research or your suggestions provide me with some events I will include them in the future.

Instead I have decided to share one of my actual experiences from my career, not to feed my ego, but to illustrate how ordinary men and women in this calling often find themselves encountering the inexplicable and and the Divine.

The Wreck of The Jumbo A

I grew up as a diver, I had no choice, my father one one of the very first diving instructors in the world. I was snorkelling at four, scuba diving at 10, teaching at 14, became an instructor at 18, and a licensed commercial deep sea diver and decompression chamber operator at the ripe old age of 19. I joined the Mounties when I was 21 and before I had completed my six-month field training, I became a member of the “E” Division (British Columbia) Underwater Recovery Team. Not because I was overqualified, but because I was posted to the north coast of British Columbia and one of the two dive team members had been transferred elsewhere, and the powers that be said “What the heck, at least he can swim!”

I had only been in the “field” at Kitimat , BC for three months when I was assigned to assist the coroner, retired Staff Sergeant Bob Milmine, in investigating a mysterious drowning at a floating logging camp.

For those of you who are not familiar with coastal British Columbia, let me digress for a moment and explain what you would see if you ever go there. They don’t call it “Beautiful BC” for nothing. The entire province is magnificent and very diverse. There are three ranges of towering mountains, deserts, and yes rainforest. Not the kind you get in the tropics, but rain forests nonetheless. Texas has nothing on BC, because everything natural is bigger than there. The coastal mountains are severed by numerous fields that are hundreds of feet deep, teaming with fish, whales, seals and other sea life and those mountains rise out of the depths and are covered in some of the largest trees you will ever see. The problem is there are very few places where the shoreline doesn’t plunge into the abyss, so logging camps in these isolated fiords are built on huge logging rafts and tied to shore.

One of these logging camps was the destination for the Jumbo-A,  a dreary five hour cruise as a water taxi from Kitimat to its location. There are no roads in these places, and the only way you can get there is by boat or seaplane, so nearly everything and everyone is transported to and from by water taxi. The Jumbo A was a converted sixty foot wooden trawler that had a room behind the wheelhouse to accommodate passengers and cargo. The wheel house had a bunk with a porthole that was raised above the passenger area, and a head, galley and additional bunks in the bow.

The coroner chartered a vessel from Alcan Aluminum to get us to the scene and we motored for four hours down the Douglas channel and up another fiord to get to the camp. Upon arrival we took possession of the body and the coroner did a preliminary examination to see if there was anything untoward that might suggest foul play. While he was doing that I went about my job interviewing witnesses. Only one man had seen the boat and he was the guy who found the body. He explained that he was the cook and he had been out in a skiff trying his luck fishing when he saw the Jumbo A steaming towards the bay, whereupon he raced back to the camp to let everyone know the taxi was arriving. After fifteen minutes he became concerned and hopped back into the skiff and headed out to investigate and found the captain’s body.

In the interview process I learned that there was another person on the vessel, the captain’s girlfriend. The Jumbo A had no other passengers and was there to drop off supplies and pick up some of the logging crew and return them to town. I jumped into a skiff with the witness and had him take me out to where he had last seen the ship and to where he found the body.What puzzled me was why  the deceased float face down, he wasn’t wearing a life jacket and he was a thin man with little body fat. He should have gone to the bottom. I scanned the area for anything out of the ordinary and noticed a rub mark on the near vertical shore line where the seaweed had been rubbed off, came to the conclusion that the vessel had hit the rock wall and sank. I offered my opinion to Bob, and he concurred with my assessment. So we took possession of the deceased and made our way back to town. After securing the body in the morgue, I reported to my corporal and then called the subdivision dive team supervisor and gave him the details. He advised me that they would come the next morning and go to the scene to see if they could find the missing woman. 

I returned to the hospital to meet with the deceased family members and explain what we knew. The next morning Civilian Member Gord Sweeting and Constable Ken Falkner arrived and I briefed them on what I knew. I explained that I was a very qualified diver and that I wanted to accompany them on the dive so if we found the vessel I could conduct my own investigation into why and how she sank. 

Normally they would have not allowed me to tag along, but considering my expertise and the fact I had all of my own diving gear, they agreed.This time Alcan provided us with a faster vessel, which was essentially a landing craft not unlike the landing craft they used on D-Day. The front end could drop to allow vehicles and equipment onto the deck and be raised again. We were impressed! You couldn’t have a better diving platform than that, we could literally walk off the bow and swim back on.

Winter on the north coast means rain and lots of it. It had been raining for days and this day was no exception. It may seem silly but most of us divers don’t like diving in the rain, sure you’re going to get wet anyway, but you still have to get dressed in your dry suit. And the rain bouncing off the top of your head gets a little annoying not to mean the lack of sunlight reduces your ability to see under way.

We arrived at the site and immediately went to work, The Dive Team guys examined the marks on the cliff and one of them put his mask on and looked into the water and saw a gouge line defending down the wall. We all agreed that this had to be where the boat sank.

Before descending they briefed me on what the plan was. The bay was 800 feet deep, and we were not going to go deeper than one hundred feet. If we found the ship then we would look it over to see if we could find the body. We all turned on our underwater lights, and walked off the bow and descended and looked for the gouge line. We quickly found it but could barely see anything because it was like swimming in chicken broth. Because there was so much rain mixing with the salt water, several feet of it was brackish and you simply couldn’t see clearly, but we could make out the gouge line. So we continued to follow it down the 250 degree slope until we hit the thermocline at thirty feet. A thermocline is a transition layer in water where the warmer water above is separated from the colder layer below. When we hit the thermocline, the difference was between night and day. Above forty feet soup, below crystal clear but dark, but our underwater lights were now useful and could illuminate our surroundings.

We continued on down into the deep and suddenly we saw the ship sitting parallel to the shoreline and upright on a 250 degree slope! We all looked at each other in disbelief, this must be a mirage we thought, it was defying the laws of physics!

We cautiously made our way to it and there emblazoned on the stern was “Jumbo-A”. I shone my light under the wreck and discovered the only thing preventing this boat from plunging 800 feet into the abyss was a large rock not much bigger than a big bail of hay. The boat had come to rest at fifty-three feet.

From our vantage point we could see inside the passenger section, but all of the cushions and anything that could float was impeding a thorough view of the full length of the cabin.With the ship teetering on a large rock, we were not going to try and penetrate her, for our movements and our breathing air bubbles could collect and shift the balance of the ship and take us down with her should we tip the scales. We took a quick swim along the port (left) side of her, they looked inside the wheel house while I went to the bow and discovered the damage that took her down. The Jumbo-A had struck the shore wall as I had suspected. It had hit so hard that it drove the centre beam in, causing the planks on both sides of the beam to pop off, enabling a surge of water to rush inside the boat and take her down fast.

Having failed to find the missing woman, we returned to the surface and decided what our next step was going to be. The plan was we would go back down with a pike pole and reach inside the passenger cabin and pluck the floating debris out. Hopefully the missing woman would  be behind the debris and they could pull her out. Down we went again, and I went to the bow to take some measurements of the damage for my report. I had the time so I swam adjacent to the starboard side of the wreck and got a clear look of the holding rock and marvelled at it. Oh if we had underwater cameras available to us back then.

As I swam back across the top of the wreck I noticed a small window at the back of the wheelhouse that I hadn’t looked in, so I went over to take a peek. I shined my light in and gasped. Looking back at me was the bleached face of a woman screaming, while her long black hair encircled her face slowly swaying from the current. To say it wasn’t startling would be an understatement. It was akin to the scene in the movie Jaws when Richard Dreyfus, looks inside the hole in the boat and a head rolled out!

I regained my composure and swam quickly over to the other divers and tapped them and pantomimed what I had seen, dropping my regulator out of my mouth, opening it like I was screaming and waving my hands around my head like I had long hair. The pantomime worked and they gave me a thumbs up and I led them to the wheel house. They looked in the porthole and then reached into the wheelhouse with the pike pole, and pulled her out. That’s when I noted that she was clutching the strap of her purse with a death grip. Having found our victim we returned to the surface and slid her onto the deck and began placing her in a body bag. That’s when things got weird.

It was still raining hard when we returned to the surface, and as we pulled her body aboard and placed her in the body bag, the clouds above the four of us opened and it stopped raining and a shaft of sunlight shone down on us. Just us! For all around us it was still dark and raining. We looked at each other in disbelief and I looked at the skipper in the wheelhouse, and his mouth was open and you could clearly see he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. We sat there for a moment taking this situation in and then started to pull the zipper on the bag up, when it got to her chin we glanced around and then zipped it closed. As soon as the bag was closed the sun disappeared as the clouds filled in and the rain poured down on us.

I later figured out why the Jumbo-A went down. The captain’s blood alcohol level came back from the lab at a whopping 3.80 mg%. The witness saw the taxi approaching the bay, the captain had turned the wheel to port and stepped out of the wheelhouse to relieve himself and the boat direction wasn’t corrected and it slammed into the shore-wall, tossing him overboard where he drowned. The woman was sleeping in the wheelhouse bunk and was suddenly woken by the rushing water taking her and the ship down, and that’s why she was screaming when she died and her last remaining act was to clutch the strap of her purse and she died.

I returned to the scene two more times to dive the Jumbo-A, the second time she was gone, having tipped off the rock that had held it, taking her far below, beyond where we could find her. 

To this day I have no explanation for why he floated when he should have gone to the bottom or why the skies parted, replaced by a shaft of light moments of awe and tranquility, but it was not the last of many strange experiences with the Divine in my role as a police diver, and member of a calling in the Mounted Police.