whether that makes sense or whether
it doesn't.”

Wanted to Join Foreign Legion

He went to England as a step on his
journey to other parts. At the back of
his mind was the idea that he might
join the French Foreign Legion. The
homebound ship stopped at Mar-
seilles, and he called at the Legion
recruiting depot. There he was told

car down to the boat bound for
Canada. Only a few of his fellow-
passengers in the steerage spoke Eng-
lish. Most of them were immigrants
from  Czvecho-Slovakia, Italy and
elsewhere.
When he landed he had $35 in his
pocket, and he just squeezed into the
country, because he was supposed to
have $50. His chief aim was to join the

Assistant Commisstoner C. E. Rivett-Carnac

he would have to wait 24 hours before
reporting back. But the ship was sail-
ing the same day, and if he kept his
appointment with the Legion he
would miss seeing England again. So
he traveled on.

Although the job in India had been
well enough paid, he had lived up to
his income, because a man was almost
obliged to do so. He landed in Eng-
land broke, and had to sell his auto-
matic to pay the fare from Tilbury
to London.

He went to stay with some friends
for a time, then took that ride in their

IWENTY-FOURTH EDITION

R.C.M.P., but he was also prepared
to go logging. “I didn’t care,” he says.
“T was young. When you're 23, you'll
do anything.”

Joins the R.C.M.P.

First of all he took a job shovelling
rock into a cement mixer at 35 cents
an hour for a 12-hour day at Montreal
docks. ‘Times were not prosperous.
That job came to a sudden end when
someone dropped a plank on his head
from the top of an elevator, and he
was moved to Montreal General
Hospital covered with wet cement and
blood. After his release he stayed for

a while at a very cheap hotel, then
applied to join the R.C.M.P. with his
head still in a bandage. They accepted
him, and he went to Ottawa to train.

He was sent to a lonely detachment
on the Mackenzie River in the far
North. For a man who wanted a
rugged life, the posting was all that
could be desired. There were long
patrols on snowshoes with dog teams
through temperatures ranging down
to 60 below zero. Detachments of two
men every 150 or 200 miles policed
the country, carried the mail, visited
lonely trappers to see that they were
safe, tended the sick and gave help
wherever it was needed.

There were no radios or airplanes.

The nearest doctor was 700 miles
away by dog team. One dog team
arrived every winter, and two boats

every sumer.

He spent three and one-half years
in the Mackenzie River country, then
came to B.C. for a year in 1927. In
the following year he went to Regina
as division orderly with the rank of
corporal, then to the Yukon for three
years.

Life in North Was Tough

Life in the North was tough, but so
were the men there. They prided
themselves on it. “In the 1920’s in the
Far North the only respect anybody
had for you was based on how far
you could travel—how tough you
were.” Dead tired or not, travelers
pressed on. The policeman covered a
minimum of 35 miles a day on snow-
shoes. Once, Mr. Rivett-Carnac re-
members, he trudged 169 miles in
three days.

On one weary trek with a half-
breed who had lived in the North all
his life, Mr. Rivett-Carnac had to
leave his companion behind and keep
traveling. The half-breed “played out”
and arrived several hours behind, but
the policeman forced himself to get
there. “It was good for the prestige of
the organization,” he says simply.

Another time he had to sleep out
for several days without a tent in 60-
below weather. They would dig a hole
in the snow and lie down on top of
spruce boughs in a_ sleeping bag.
Once he rolled into the fire and set
himself alight.

The traveler had to plod along the
river on an ice overflow, leaning at a
45-degree angle, holding steady on a
dog-line so that the dogs and _ their
500-pound load wouldn’t roll away
and be jammed in the rough ice at the
bottom. The toughest trip was with a
sick trapper along the White River.
Breaking trail, he nearly fell through
the undercut ice into the river several
times.

His dogs “played out” on one
Yukon patrol. He and his companion
had to take their sleeping bags and
the food that was left, and try to reach

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