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Sam Steele: A Biography
Sam Steele, "the man who tamed the Gold Rush," had a high-profile public career, yet his private life has been closely protected. Sam A Biography follows Steele's rise from farm boy in backwoods Ontario to the much-lauded Major General Sir Samuel Benfield Steele. Drawing on the vast Steele archive at the University of Alberta, this comprehensive biography vividly recounts some of the most significant events of the first fifty years of Canadian Confederation―including the founding of the North-West Mounted Police, the opening of the North through the Klondike, and Canada's participation in the South African War―from the perspective of a policeman who became a military leader. Impeccably researched and accessibly written, Sam Steele is perfect for anyone interested in Canada's early decades.
432 pages, Paperback
Published November 29, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 5, 2021
Pretty incredible book. I don’t read a lot of biographies, because often they are just not very entertaining reading for me. This one was was one of the best biographies I’ve read. I learned a lot about Canadian history and politics as well as world history that I did not know before I read this book - so it’s not just about one person and what he did. I didn’t realize the patronage and political appointments were so rampant in Canada even back in the early years of our confederation as a country. “Favours owed before competence” was the rule, rather than the exception.
It’s a small miracle that any Canadian troops made it home from World War I given all the incompetence and bumbling that went on.
It did paint a very thorough picture of Sam Steele - but the author didn’t pull any punches, either. If there were behaviours or incidents that did not paint Steele in a positive light, the author still included those, if they were relevant.
I have a greater appreciation for what and who Sam Steele was, like all humans, very complex and subject to foibles when dealing with complicated issues.
Very well written, highly recommend it.
It’s a small miracle that any Canadian troops made it home from World War I given all the incompetence and bumbling that went on.
It did paint a very thorough picture of Sam Steele - but the author didn’t pull any punches, either. If there were behaviours or incidents that did not paint Steele in a positive light, the author still included those, if they were relevant.
I have a greater appreciation for what and who Sam Steele was, like all humans, very complex and subject to foibles when dealing with complicated issues.
Very well written, highly recommend it.
October 30, 2019
Research for my impeding novel. Sam was everywhere in early Western Canada - in the NWMP, in the Riel Rebellion, in the Boer War, in WW1. Super interesting guy, but I already knew that.
April 4, 2022
- EDIT - An apolgia for Sam Steele and a elegy for policing in Canada.
An interesting and informative read. But as with most written history it pays to remember that the author has a political perspective on the significance of their subject. Far from the "Feminist" that the CBC has called the individual that Steele was he is still worth learning about on account of the career that he had, and the role that he played in the shaping of events throughout the British Imperial phase of Canadian and South African history.
Read more as an assessment of the historical significance of one of the British Empire's top cops and soldiers this book is full of interesting information (such as Steele's relationship to the Christian Church and the impact of Jesuit missionaries in the expropriation of First Nations territory in the interior of what we now call "British Columbia", or his experience in securing the gold mines of South Africa for the British Empire) this book is worth the time it takes to read it.
Unfortunately one must also wade through personal information. The author wants to make a big deal out of Steele's marriage (to a person who was well connected politically and who was willing to tolerate Steele's careerist ego) by pointing at the voluminous correspondence (without bothering to take into account that these were the days before Social Media, the Internet, Television, Radio, or even Telephones).
Lacking a well rounded and critical evaluation of the significance of Steele's career, the author (a well respected academic historian) instead wants to rehabilitate Steele the man. The book suffers from that essential contradiction though; was Steele just another man? Or was he a man whose career helped shaped world history? For example the author attempts to make the point in the introduction that the west was not taken by Canada through military conquest. Yet any biography of Steele that ignored the Northwest Resistance of 1885 would be incomplete. The author does not ignore this historic episode, in fact there is a whole chapter on it, and every letter of that chapter drips conquest as Steele led the cavalry element of what was know as "The Alberta Field Force", and was in direct command of the outfit known as "Steele's Scouts" who were responsible for attempting to capture the Cree chief Mistahimaskwa (Big Bear). Clearly the relevance of Steele was less that he was a man, and more that he was at the centre of world historic events as a policeman and a soldier. As clear as the fact that the Canadian prairies were secured for Canada only through military conquest.
A disappointment of a book, like most of what I've read and learned about western Canadian history, this book must be read critically. Full of interesting facts it would be a shame to take this book at face value. Where he is critical of the relevance of Steele it is only to say that Steele, the high handed autocrat who made law up on the spot, and bribed family members to roll on their fugitive relations, was right to do these things. Ultimately, for as much as he takes a somewhat left perspective (such as in the chapter where he discusses Steele in South Africa and explains relatively well how Black Africans were excluded from the democratic process in South Africa as a result Boer nationalism, which was just fine for the British as long as the Boer's remained land locked) this author wants to rehabilitate Steele as a means for furthering a Canadian federalist and conservative perspective on the Canadian nations relevance to the west. Politically, he is far from wanting to split the west away from Canada, a thing which would most likely lead to the annexation of the Canadian prairies by the US. Instead, the political imperative pushing the author is an intent to retain the west for Canada by showing that it has always been Canadian, at least since Canada bought it from the Hudson's Bay Company.
But, for all of the oversights (including the lack of context, the hidden politics, and the revisionism that privileges a view of history that is based on the individual) this is a book worth reading. It's written in a very readable style and is well researched using archival sources. A big step forward in the study of western Canadian history considering that the only other biography of Steele contained at least one big lie (See "The Burial Legend of Sam Steele") But this book is definitely History from a certain point of view. Had that been honestly presented in an upfront way then the book might have earned another star.
An interesting and informative read. But as with most written history it pays to remember that the author has a political perspective on the significance of their subject. Far from the "Feminist" that the CBC has called the individual that Steele was he is still worth learning about on account of the career that he had, and the role that he played in the shaping of events throughout the British Imperial phase of Canadian and South African history.
Read more as an assessment of the historical significance of one of the British Empire's top cops and soldiers this book is full of interesting information (such as Steele's relationship to the Christian Church and the impact of Jesuit missionaries in the expropriation of First Nations territory in the interior of what we now call "British Columbia", or his experience in securing the gold mines of South Africa for the British Empire) this book is worth the time it takes to read it.
Unfortunately one must also wade through personal information. The author wants to make a big deal out of Steele's marriage (to a person who was well connected politically and who was willing to tolerate Steele's careerist ego) by pointing at the voluminous correspondence (without bothering to take into account that these were the days before Social Media, the Internet, Television, Radio, or even Telephones).
Lacking a well rounded and critical evaluation of the significance of Steele's career, the author (a well respected academic historian) instead wants to rehabilitate Steele the man. The book suffers from that essential contradiction though; was Steele just another man? Or was he a man whose career helped shaped world history? For example the author attempts to make the point in the introduction that the west was not taken by Canada through military conquest. Yet any biography of Steele that ignored the Northwest Resistance of 1885 would be incomplete. The author does not ignore this historic episode, in fact there is a whole chapter on it, and every letter of that chapter drips conquest as Steele led the cavalry element of what was know as "The Alberta Field Force", and was in direct command of the outfit known as "Steele's Scouts" who were responsible for attempting to capture the Cree chief Mistahimaskwa (Big Bear). Clearly the relevance of Steele was less that he was a man, and more that he was at the centre of world historic events as a policeman and a soldier. As clear as the fact that the Canadian prairies were secured for Canada only through military conquest.
A disappointment of a book, like most of what I've read and learned about western Canadian history, this book must be read critically. Full of interesting facts it would be a shame to take this book at face value. Where he is critical of the relevance of Steele it is only to say that Steele, the high handed autocrat who made law up on the spot, and bribed family members to roll on their fugitive relations, was right to do these things. Ultimately, for as much as he takes a somewhat left perspective (such as in the chapter where he discusses Steele in South Africa and explains relatively well how Black Africans were excluded from the democratic process in South Africa as a result Boer nationalism, which was just fine for the British as long as the Boer's remained land locked) this author wants to rehabilitate Steele as a means for furthering a Canadian federalist and conservative perspective on the Canadian nations relevance to the west. Politically, he is far from wanting to split the west away from Canada, a thing which would most likely lead to the annexation of the Canadian prairies by the US. Instead, the political imperative pushing the author is an intent to retain the west for Canada by showing that it has always been Canadian, at least since Canada bought it from the Hudson's Bay Company.
But, for all of the oversights (including the lack of context, the hidden politics, and the revisionism that privileges a view of history that is based on the individual) this is a book worth reading. It's written in a very readable style and is well researched using archival sources. A big step forward in the study of western Canadian history considering that the only other biography of Steele contained at least one big lie (See "The Burial Legend of Sam Steele") But this book is definitely History from a certain point of view. Had that been honestly presented in an upfront way then the book might have earned another star.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews