GLORY AND TRAGEDY IN THE NORTH
In the recent Great War a somewhat casual visitor was present when a
vagrant shell smashed the refreshment dug-out where a young Red Cross
man was handling some comforts for the khaki-clad boys near the front
line. And when the alarmed visitor explained to the dispenser of
refreshments, "I would not stay here for a hundred dollars a day," the
answer came back swiftly but kindly, "Neither would I." He was not there
for the hope of gain, but out of a sense of duty and adventure so strong
that both danger and remuneration were forgotten.
There was a good deal of this spirit manifest in Mounted Police history
from the beginning. Not the pittance in the way of pay drew men to the
corps, but the love of the adventurous and the desire to do work in the
out-of-the-way places, where new trails had to be blazed beyond the
accustomed sky-line. This was especially true of the men who served and
volunteered to serve again in the vast spaces of the white and frozen
North. Not for a hundred a day would they have so risked their lives, as
others risk them still in that region. It was because the jurisdiction
of their country's flag had to be asserted, and because lonely outposts
and scattered groups of sometimes starving natives challenged the best
that was in them, that these uniformed crusaders went out again and
again on their hazardous patrols.
And so, when in 1911 Inspector Fitzgerald, Constables Kinney, Taylor and
Special Constable Carter, four men of the finest type and the most
thorough experience in those desperate, trackless and frozen areas, men
cast in so fine a mould that some of them were to be selected for the
King's Coronation, perished on a patrol from Herschell Island to Fort
Macpherson and Dawson City, Canada was stabbed broad awake to what the
men of the Force had been doing for their country in those Arctic lands.
It seems as if such catastrophes are periodically required to make a
selfish world aware of what some men are enduring in order that others
may live in comfort and ease. But the world does not always receive such
lessons in the right spirit. The tendency is rather to raise a protest
against the authorities who permit men so to sacrifice themselves. Thus,
when those four gallant men fell in the Northern wilderness, the first
note from the press seemed to indicate that this patrol was an
exceptional occurrence, and that it should not have been allowed to take
place in view of the possible sacrifice it might involve. This gave
Commissioner Perry, than whom no one was more deeply distressed and
grieved at the tragic event, an opportunity to remind the country that
such patrols had been for years a common and every-day event in the work
of his men in the North. From year to year, under the Polar sky, in
scores of different directions, the Police had carried on this work,
performing definite duties, carrying mails, visiting camps of Indians
and Esquimaux who were the wards of the nation, maintaining law and
order beyond the confines of civilization and generally exercising a
wholesome oversight in the loneliest spaces in the world. "This is
dangerous work," wrote the Commissioner; "in our rigorous winter climate
and in spite of every precaution, a tragedy may occur at any time. It
does not deter our men from seeking service there, and it is to the
North many prefer to go." The spirit of adventure was in the blood of
these men, and the tragic possibilities which no one foresaw as well as
they did themselves erected no barrier which could discourage them in
their endeavours. If there was the constant looming up of danger through
the "white death" fog, there was also the glory of adventure under the
flashing splendour of the aurora borealis.
[Illustration: R.N.W.M.P. BARRACKS, CHURCHILL, HUDSON BAY.]
[Illustration: POLICE WITH DOGS AND EQUIPMENT ON SPLIT LAKE. N.W.T.]
And when Commissioner Perry wrote in his report as above quoted, he was
able to support his statement by actual facts from that very same year.
He said: "All over the North-land members of this Force are carrying out
these difficult journeys. Attached to this report you will find many
reports of equally dangerous patrols. Sergeant Hayter, 700 miles return
journey from Fullerton along the West Coast of Hudson Bay to Rankin
Inlet, to meet Sergeant Borden, who went up from Fort Churchill,
carrying mail and taking a census of the Esquimaux; Sergeant Walker from
Fort Churchill to York Factory and return; Sergeant Nicholls from Norway
House to Fort Churchill and return to Gimli; Sergeant Edgenton from
Split Lake to Fort Churchill, arriving with dogs abandoned by the way,
and three days without food; Sergeant Munday from the Pas to Lac de
Brochet and return, 900 miles in fifty-one days; and Sergeant MacLeod
from Fort Vermilion across the Caribou Mountains to Great Slave Lake."
This is a most formidable list, and to anyone who knows the country and
the climate it affords the imagination a moving panorama, in which
constant danger and almost incredible endurance are portrayed. All this
forcibly reminded Canada of the devotion of her sons in the Northern
hinterland, and that was the purpose of it being definitely stated. And
it gives us a sort of veneration for the memory of the four men of the
Fitzgerald patrol whose magnificent strength, after having been tried
and proven on many similar journeys for years, succumbed before a
combination of intolerable cold, blizzard-swept trails, unfamiliar river
passes, shortage of provisions and starving train-dogs. For it was the
death of these men that brought home to the people the astonishing
achievements and heroisms of Canadian chivalry on the frontiers.
Fitzgerald himself, as we have already seen, had been famous for years
as an intrepid patrol man, and had been promoted to the rank of
Inspector for his services. All the others, Kinney, Taylor and
ex-Constable Carter, had been more than once mentioned in dispatches.
This is a legitimate expression, because in reality the Mounted Police
were always on active service, and their merits were made known in the
reports of their superior officers.
Strangely enough, from the human viewpoint, it was at Fitzgerald's own
request that he was selected by the Commissioner in 1910 to take command
of the Mackenzie River district. It was only the year before that he,
then a staff-sergeant, had handed over that district to Inspector
Jennings, but after receiving his promotion, Fitzgerald heard the
insistent call of the great familiar North so overwhelmingly that he
asked to be sent back into the white wastes again. And further, to
vindicate some divine purpose running through it all, he suggested the
patrol in that direction himself. The patrol had always been from
"Dawson to Fort Macpherson and Herschell," but Fitzgerald asked to have
its order reversed, and offered to go from Herschell Island to
Macpherson and Dawson, from which latter point he could get into touch
by wire with headquarters at Regina and report on his district. To this
the Commissioner agreed, and so notified the Comptroller at Ottawa, as
well as the officer commanding at Dawson, who was told to expect the
patrol from Macpherson about the end of January.
When the patrol started from Fort Macpherson everything seemed
favourable for a mid-winter trip. The men were all in fit condition,
thoroughly acquainted with conditions of winter travel, and so keen to
make a record journey that they did not burden themselves with more food
than necessary for themselves and their dogs, of which they had fifteen
for their three trains. The sequel proved that had they been able to
keep the route they would have made Dawson in good shape. The trouble
came upon them when neither map nor compass or any previous knowledge
availed them in the maze of rivers and mountains that lay in their way.
Taylor and Kinney had never been over the route, Fitzgerald had been
over it once on another trail from the Dawson end. Carter had been over
the new trail once a few years previously, but he, too, had come over it
from Dawson to Macpherson, and a route with its piloting marks of bluffs
and trees or banks by the way-side looks quite different when traversed
the opposite way. Carter was a powerful, experienced and thoroughly
reliable man, who had seen much service in the Force. Though not in the
corps at the time of the patrol, he had been confident of his ability to
guide the party to Dawson, and Fitzgerald had taken him on in that
capacity.
The weather was intensely cold, and the going heavy, with here and there
the rivers bursting up through the broken ice and creating very
difficult trails. But they were all used to that, and did not mind it.
Over a portage at a certain point they secured the services of an
Indian, named Esau, to break trail and guide them to a certain point
from which Carter was sure he knew the way. There the Indian was
discharged and returned to his camp, Fitzgerald probably feeling that
extra expenditure of Government funds for a guide was not justified when
Carter was along.
The scene changes to Dawson. The patrol did not arrive when expected,
and Superintendent A. E. Snyder, an experienced officer, who was in
command there, began to get anxious, and when some Indians arrived from
the Fort Macpherson direction he got in touch with them at once. From
them he learned that Esau, who had been discharged at a certain point,
expected the patrol to be in Dawson many days before the day of Snyder's
inquiry. Snyder, fearing the worst, became alarmed. He wired the
Commissioner as to the situation, and at the same time called Corporal
Dempster from Forty Mile and instructed him to get ready a party to go
in search of the lost patrol. The Commissioner flashed back instructions
to send out a search party, and it went without delay. It is evident
from his telegram that the Commissioner, who knew the perils of the
trail and had his hand on every part of the country, thought the trouble
was with the failure of the guide, because he asks why the Indian, who
was mentioned by Snyder, was discharged, and in order that no undue
risks be taken he says, "Send a well-outfitted party."
The party sent out was fully up to requirements. Corporal Dempster was a
noted traveller of those Yukon trails, and at the date of this writing
is out on the same difficult route, his strength unbroken by the
intervening years. For his party in search of Fitzgerald he chose
Constable Fyfe, ex-Constable Turner, and an Indian, Charles Stewart.
They had all been over the country again and again, and so knew it well.
They were all eager to go in the hope of reaching their missing
comrades. The broad outline of their duty was given them by
Superintendent Snyder, with the Spartan simplicity and directness
characteristic of the Mounted Police. It ran thus: "Corporal Dempster.
You will leave to-morrow for a patrol over the Fort Macpherson trail to
locate the whereabouts of Inspector Fitzgerald's party. Indians from
Macpherson reported him on New Year's Day at Mountain Creek. Fair
travelling from Mountain Creek is about twenty days to Dawson. I
understand that at Hart, no matter which route he took, he would have to
cross the divide. I think it would be advisable to make for this point
and take up his trail from there. I cannot give you any specific
instructions; you will have to be guided by circumstances and your own
judgment, _bearing in mind that nothing is to stand in your way until
you have got into touch with this party_."
Dempster and his men made a record trip, both going to Macpherson and
coming back. And this they did despite the fact that they had to face
high winds, blinding snowstorms and flooded ice, besides searching the
rivers that branched off the main route. They arrived back in Dawson on
April 17, 1911, gaunt and haggard. "It's the hardest patrol I ever
made," said Dempster, and that not by the perils of the way, which he
was well able to meet, but because, as had already been told to the
world, he had found the dead bodies of his four gallant comrades, where
they had perished of cold and hunger on the way.
The first two bodies, those of Kinney and Taylor, were found some 35
miles from Macpherson, and those of Carter and Fitzgerald within a score
of miles of that place. Only a short day's run from Macpherson. If those
who were there had only known, how speedily they would have gone to the
rescue! It appears clear from what Fitzgerald had written in his diary,
the first date in which was December 21, 1910, and the last February 5,
1911, that not many days after Indian Esau had left, it became apparent
that Carter had over-estimated his ability to remember the route which
he had only passed over once a few years before, and that the reverse
way. Many landmarks may have been removed by fire and otherwise since
that time. Poor Carter! I sometimes feel he suffered more than any of
them when he found that he could not find the way he thought he knew.
How hard he tried day after day, leaving camp with one or other of his
companions and going up one river after the other, only to find that
they ended as "blind alleys," along which they could proceed no farther.
And so Fitzgerald has to write on January 17: "Carter is hopelessly lost
and does not know one river from another. We have only 10 lbs. of flour,
8 lbs. of bacon and some dried fish. My last hope is gone, and the only
thing I can do is to return and kill some of the dogs to feed the others
and ourselves. We have now been a week looking for a river to take us
over the divide, but there are dozens of rivers and I am at a loss."
One asks why they had not turned back days before, and as soon as they
found the route uncertain. The answer is that it was not the Police way
to turn back when they were out on a definite errand. These men were of
the same calibre as the young constable in the foothill country who was
caught in a blizzard while out on duty, and on whose body, as already
quoted, was found a paper with the words: "Lost. Horse dead. Am trying
to push ahead. Have done my best."
But Fitzgerald was not alone, and had to save his men if he could.
Kinney and Taylor, less strong than the others, suffered from cold and
severe pains, the results perhaps of the dog meat and dog liver diet.
The dogs would not eat this food, and so the men gave them the fish they
had for their own use. So, in a last effort to save his men, Fitzgerald
ordered the return, in the hope of making Fort Macpherson, from which
they had travelled over 300 miles. He and Carter could have made it had
they not been hampered by the other two, who were sick. But they would
not leave them, as shown by the fact that Dempster found the camps each
night were only a few miles apart. Finally, it appears that in the hope
of reaching Macpherson and getting help Fitzgerald and Carter gave all
the food, such as it was, and all the warm sleeping-bags to their
comrades, and tried to reach Macpherson, which was only 35 miles away.
They made 10 miles and then gave out and fell. Carter was evidently the
first to go, for his body was laid out, his hands crossed, and a
handkerchief put over his face. Then the gallant Fitzgerald succumbed,
first having written with a charred stick on a paper found in his pocket
his will in the fine words: "All money in dispatch bag and bank,
clothes, etc., I leave to my dearly beloved Mother, Mrs. John
Fitzgerald, of Halifax. God bless all. F. J. Fitzgerald, R.N.W.M.P."
Many times have the initials of the old corps been written in important
and honourable connections, but never with greater honour to the Force
than when they were thus set down with the thought of his mother and a
benediction for all by the numbed fingers of the heroic Inspector who
was faithful unto death.
When Dempster and his men found the emaciated bodies and the mail which
the dead men had carefully guarded they covered the bodies over
reverently with brush, for their dogs were too far spent by the hard,
swift trip to draw them, and went on to Fort Macpherson with the sad
news. Those at Macpherson never dreamed but that the four strong,
splendid men who had left them weeks before had long ere the date of
Dempster's arrival reached Dawson City. The news that now came blanched
all faces and cast a great gloom over that little company in the far
North. Next morning, March 23, Corporal Somers and Constable Blake got
together three fresh dog-teams with which, accompanied by two Indians,
Somers started out at noon and returned on the 25th with the bodies of
the men who had given up their lives in the line of their duty. A grave
was prepared, the only one of its kind in the Northland, where the four
bodies were buried side by side, in coffins made and covered with black
by Somers and Dempster. The funeral was held in the Anglican Church,
that devoted missionary, Rev. C. E. Whittaker, conducting the service in
the presence of Mrs. Whittaker, nine white men and the native residents.
Dempster says finely here: "Even though the funeral was held in the most
northerly part of the Empire, away in the Arctic Circle, hundreds of
miles from civilization, I am glad to be able to assure you that
everything was done in connection with the last sad rites that could
possibly be done under the circumstances, and I am sure that the
relatives and friends of the deceased will be glad to know that it was
possible to have Christian burial services read by an ordained minister
of the Gospel over the bodies of their loved ones." The honours were
duly paid also by their comrades, for there was a firing party of five,
Somers, Blake, Dempster, Fyfe and Turner, to give the farewell salute at
the graveside. In the solitude of the vast Northland the rattle of that
musketry would not carry far in one sense, but it awaked echoes in
hearts that understood in far places of the Empire.
When Commissioner Perry sent his final report on the matter he voiced
the feelings of all when he wrote: "Their loss has been felt most keenly
by every member of the Force, but we cannot but feel a thrill of pride
at the endeavour they made to carry out their duty. I cannot express it
better than in the following extract from a letter addressed to me by
His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan: 'While the
occurrence brings deepest sadness to all, we feel that such an event
gives greater lustre and enduring remembrance to the splendid Force.'"
And Inspector Sanders, then at Athabasca Landing, who knew the men well
and had received a report from Corporal Somers, wrote a statement to the
Commissioner, in which these fine sentences occur: "It would appear that
Inspector Fitzgerald was the last to succumb, and that he and Carter
would probably have made Fort Macpherson had they not heroically stood
by their stricken and weary companions. The pathetic attention evidently
paid by Inspector Fitzgerald to his dead companions was in keeping with
his brave and manly character."
Memorial services were held in Dawson and other places, and at the
service in Dawson Governor Alexander Henderson said: "They did not fall
in the shock of battle, but, none the less, they all died nobly in the
discharge of their duty and in the service of their country."
The members of the Mounted Police Force raised a large amount for the
purpose of a memorial tablet, but perhaps the most eloquent, if humble,
testimonies were in the wide North, where the men and their achievements
were so well known for years. Corporal Somers, at Fort Macpherson, cut a
copper camp kettle into strips and engraved upon them the names of the
brave departed, while more recently the famous old name of Smith's
Landing at the end of the Athabasca River navigation was changed to
Fitzgerald as a tribute to the memory of the gallant Policeman whose
name was a household word in all that country.
The fatal ending of the Fitzgerald patrol remains as the most tragic
happening in the long and remarkable history of the Mounted Police. But,
as already suggested, it startled our people into a fuller realization
of what the men of the Force were and are doing so unobtrusively for the
country at such constant risk to themselves. The passing of Fitzgerald
and his companions on that frozen way will not have been in vain if our
Canadian lads learn new lessons from the men whose silent tents are, at
the end of the trail, pitched on the eternal camping ground of Fame. If
these lessons of heroism and devotion to duty are learned and practised
by the young men of to-day, then that lonely fourfold grave under the
Arctic sky will prove to be one of the bulwarks of the nation.