HE SKIPPER of a West Coast

fishing boat looked up aghast one

summer’s day a few years ago.
Swooping towards him, silhouetted
against a low-hanging cloud, was a
trim little seaplane with an official
lock about it.

Stencilled along one side were the
legend M.P. and the unmistakable
insignia of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police.

The skipper’s amazement was com-
pounded when the plane landed

President Secretary
Robert Miller Charles J. Harman

-THE CANADIAN LEGION OF
THE BRITISH EMPIRE SERVICE
LEAGUE

PRINCETON BRANCH No. 56
PRINCETON, B.C.

TWENTY-SEVENTH EDITION

alongside and the pilot, much in the
manner of a highway patrolman,
signalled him to heave to.

Two officers climbed aboard, exe-

OLIVER SAWMILLS LTD.

Manufacturers of
WESTERN PINE BOX SHOOKS

Phone 78

P.O. Box 159
OLIVER, B.C.

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OSOYOOS, B.C.
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Phone 3391 P.O. Box 260

Tracking smugglers, count-
ing trumpeter swams, mak-
ing mercy flights—they re all
in a day’s work for the
RC Vee Ante Division
which patrols the longest,
loneliest police beat in the
world.

*
By

JAMES HORNICK
-

cuted a warrant and took custody of a
passenger. The man was wanted for
murder.

This was another incident in
the day’s. routine of a small,
almost anonymous band of
policemen who patrol the longest,
loneliest beat in the world. For
these were members of that little-
known adjunct of the famed
R.C.M.P.—-the Air Division.

In 1953, the last year for which
statistics are available, the blue and
gold skyborne sieeds of the R.C.M.P.
charged across 517,288 miles of sky,
equivalent to 20 trips around the
globe.

Missions Read Like Fiction

The flying horsemen are liable to
drop out of the skies anytime, almost
anywhere in Canada, in seaplanes,
skiplanes or Jandplanes, on missions
so incredible they read like fiction.

The’ve taken census of the
near-extinct trumpeter swan and
showered ashes on a mountain.

- MIDWAY
OWED

CARL THORNET, Proprietor

LICENSED PREMISES
FULLY MODERN
REASONABLE RATES
GOOD SERVICE

*
Midway, British Columbia

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