810-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 22,1986 Canadian Mounties' Role Different Than legend Suggests TREPASSEY, Newfoundland - Striding purposefully up the stairs, Cpl. Roger L. Taylor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police enters the large room, spots his man...and sells him a $lO provincial firearms permit. If that little transaction in a fish processing plant doesn’t sound like the stuff of the legends associated with the Mounties, the red coats and the black horses, Sgt. Preston and Nelson Eddy, so be it. The truth about what a “member of the force” does is more prosaic than the legend made famous in song, story, television serial, and TURKEY TALK A real turkey's tail. At least in the male, Has many a color so bright; There are yellows and blues, Plus browns in all hues, And even some green and some He struts for his hen. Who looks now and then At her clucking and swaggering But if he’s not wise He becomes quite a prize, And is served up with dressing a s ■SfflffP BLAC< REP i EUOW 3. 5. BLUE BROWN THANKSGIVING RBPLB&S OUR NBRITAOB HW 6/t/BS US VMS TO 7N/NN OP TNB GRBAT BOUNTY OP TN& LANO TNBFRBBPOMS U/B NATURALLY BNUOY, TNB RBSPONSIBILIT/BS THAT COMB UJfTN INOSB FRBB POMS AND TNB SB CURW LOB KNOW AS AMBR/CANS. TN/S/S TNB TfMBTOO/YB IN ANNS POR U/NATUIB NRUB RBC6/YBP. film, but no less demanding. Serves Vast Area Taylor is commander of the three-man RCMP detachment at Trepassey, on the windblown, often fogbound, barren but beautiful southern shore of Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula. His detachment serves 5,300 residents spread over 60 miles of coast road and an enormous area inland where only hunters, caribou, moose, and Mounties dare to tread. Unlike U.S. police forces, the RCMP in Newfoundland and most -Si ORANGE GREEN LT. BROWN IT BUIE LI GREEN of Canada is responsible for en forcing every level of law: federal, provincial, and municipal. So when 135 Tamil refugees showed up in lifeboats off the Newfoundland coast in August and were picked up by local fishing boats, the Canadian Coast Guard notified Taylor. He sped to St. Shotts to make sure the refugees didn’t try to go ashore before a Coast Guard vessel arrived to collect them. “It was no big deal,” he says. When a restaurant is broken into in Trepassey, or a fishing boat goes out without proper safety gear, or • mmmsm§ ■ //- Z 7- 36 to a woman’s body washes up on shore, or a pack of dogs roams through a community in violation of the provincial Dog Act, or a car strikes a caribou or a moose, Taylor or one of his two constables is pressed into service. The North West Mounted Police, the RCMP’s earliest incarnation, was formed after Canada acquired what had been Hudson’s Bay Co. territory in 1870 and found itself with the dual task of calming potentially antagonistic Indians and suppressing illegal whisky traders from south of the U.S. border. Organized in 1873 as a paramilitary unit its recruits still undergo a six-month boot camp style of basic training the NWMP’s original 18 officers and 257 enlisted men rode from Duf ferin, Manitoba, to Fort Macleod and Fort Edmonton, Alberta. Their red coats impressed the Indians, who had had good dealings with similarly clad British troops, and the whisky traders were dispatched with little trouble. The NWMP established its presence on the frontier with minimal bloodshed and gained its greatest fame in maintaining order in the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush of the 1890 s. In honor of its work, it was awarded the prefix “Royal” by King Ed ward VII in 1904. Gradually the RNWMP took over most policing duties in Canada’s provinces until a reorganization in 1920, when it was given its present name and made responsible for federal law en forcement and national security. But not long afterward, one province after another signed up the Mounties on a contract basis, until now only Ontario and Quebec iV "S : i j \3tl , w O u j iv / Renamed In 1920 y ■ •» 1m vv M b // //(.) retain sole jurisdiction for provincial law enforcement. The RCMP moved into Newfoundland when the island joined Canada in 1950. Mounties no longer ride horses; equitation training was suspended in 1966. They aren’t responsible for national security any more; a separate Canadian Security In telligence Service was created in 1984. Nor do Mounties including women, recruited since 1974 wear red tunics, except on formal occasions. The everyday uniform is a khaki shirt, navy-blue tie, navy-blue trousers with a yellow stripe, and black ankle boots polished to a mirror-like sheen. Cpl. Taylor is the embodiment of today’s Mountie. He is a 36-year old native of Nova Scotia with 17 years of experience on the force who chafes, like police everywhere, at paperwork and the limits imposed on him as he goes after suspects he is sure are guilty. “There’s one of our leading drug traffickers,” he says as a car approaches, “but knowing it and proving it in court are two different things.” Yet he will say with little prompting and considerable pride; “I’m a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I couldn’t see being on any other force.” Taylor knows that to be a member of the force, he must adhere to all of its standards all of the time. He is so clean-cut, dedicated, and reserved that it seems incongruous that when he and his family visited California last year, he appeared on the television program “The Price is Right.” He won a sofa and a sailboat. (Turn to Page B 12) ■M% \ 3 ,/7 n < i j «
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