A Trying Time: The North-West Mounted Police in the 1885 Rebellion

by Jim Wallace

The North West Rebellion in 1885 was, in every sense, "a trying time" for the North West Mounted Police.  The role of the force in the insurrection has been described by historians as "minor" and "insignificant" but this does not do justice to the major part played by a relatively small number of members of the Mounted Police who were involved in the battles at Duck Lake, Cut Knife Hill, Frenchman's Butte, and Loon Lake. This volume describes the activities of the Mounted Police just before, during and after the rebellion, including attempts by General Middleton, commander of the Canadian Militia during the Rebellion to have the Mounted Police abolished and the role assumed by the Militia. The book contains a  full Nominal Roll for all engagements.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Jim Wallace studied English literature at Williams College. He lived for a year in Norway, where he traveled and learned Norwegian. Then he lived in East Africa for three years. He taught school in Kampala, Uganda, for two years and traveled around Kenya and Uganda by motorcycle. In 1971 he went on an expedition in Uganda to look for mountain gorillas near the Zaire border. Jim Wallace has done some carpentry and farming and publishing, fixed cars, and been a rock and roll disk jockey.

Reviews

[Tim Armstrong · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wish I could give this a better rating, because I was excited to read the book and learn more about a relatively forgotten chapter in Canadian history. The book is well researched and very thorough in its narrative. However, its incredibly boring and that was very disappointing to me. This book was a chore to get through and I found myself skimming a lot of it as a lot of the information felt repetitive.

I appreciate that this book exists (though hard to come by) but I could not in good conscious recommend it to anyone interested in Canadian history and I myself will be seeking out different books about the settlement of the Canadian West as it's a topic that is quite interesting to me.