Editing Sam Steele (section)

== Life as Mountie ==

{{Unreferenced section|date=November 2023}}

In 1873, Steele was the third officer sworn into the newly formed [[North-West Mounted Police]] (NWMP), entering as a staff constable. He was one of the officers to lead the new recruits of the NWMP on the 1874 [[March West]], when he returned to Fort Garry, present-day [[Winnipeg]], Manitoba. To him fell the rank of staff sergeant major and the responsibility, as an accomplished horseman and man-at-arms, of drilling the new recruits. In 1878, Steele was given his own command at [[Fort Qu'Appelle]], [[North-West Territories]].

In 1877, he was assigned to meet with [[Sitting Bull]], who, having defeated Lieutenant Colonel [[George Armstrong Custer]] at the [[Battle of the Little Bighorn|Little Bighorn]], had moved with his people into Canada to escape American vengeance. Steele along with U.S. Army Major General [[Alfred Howe Terry]] attempted to persuade Sitting Bull to return to the United States. (Most of the Sioux returned a few years later.)

During the [[North-West Rebellion]], Steele was dispatched with a small force. Missing the [[Battle of Batoche]], the Mounties were sent to move against the last resistance force led by [[Big Bear]]. He was present at the [[Battle of Frenchman's Butte]], where Big Bear's warriors defeated the Canadian forces under General [[Thomas Bland Strange]]. Two weeks later, Steele and his two dozen Mounties defeated Big Bear's force at [[Battle of Loon Lake|Loon Lake]], [[District of Saskatchewan]], in the last battle fought on Canadian territory. The contributions of the NWMP in putting down the rebellion went largely ignored and unrewarded, to Steele's great annoyance. By 1885, Steele was recalled to Calgary, where he was tasked with organizing and commanding the scouting contingent for Major General T.B. Strange’s Alberta Field Force. Steele’s Scouts performed well, which led to his promotion to superintendent after the rebellion. He established an NWMP station in the town of Galbraiths Ferry, which was later named to [[Fort Steele]] in British Columbia, after Steele solved a murder in the town. He then moved on to [[Fort Macleod]], [[District of Alberta]], in 1888.

In 1887, Steele was ordered to take “D” Division to southeastern British Columbia, where the provincial government had mismanaged relations with the Ktunaxa (Kootenay) nation to the point that violence was threatened. Steele’s men built Fort Steele	on the Kootenay River, and he resolved the situation through patient diplomacy with Chief Isadore. The division returned to Fort Macleod in the summer of 1888, and Steele commanded that post, the largest outside NWMP headquarters in Regina, for the next decade.

In 1889, at Fort Macleod, he met Marie-Elizabeth de Lotbinière-Harwood (1859–1951), daughter of [[Robert William Harwood]]. They were married at [[Vaudreuil-Dorion|Vaudreuil]], Quebec, in 1890. They had three children, including Harwood Steele, who fictionalized episodes from his father's life in novels such as ''Spirit-of-Iron'' (1929).

The discovery of gold in the [[Klondike, Yukon|Klondike]] in the late 1890s presented Steele with a new challenge. Although he campaigned unsuccessfully for the position of assistant commissioner in 1892, in January 1898, he was sent to succeed [[Charles Constantine]] as commissioner and to establish customs posts at the head of the [[White Pass|White]] and [[Chilkoot Pass]]es, and at Lake Bennett. He was noted for his hard line with the hundreds of unruly and independent-minded prospectors, many of them American. To help control the situation, he established the rule that no one would be allowed to enter the Yukon without a ton of goods to support himself, thus preventing the entry of desperate and potentially-unruly speculators and adventurers.

Steele and his force made the [[Klondike Gold Rush]] one of the most orderly of its kind in history and made the NWMP famous around the world, which ensured its survival at a critical time, as the force's dissolution was being debated in Parliament. By July 1898, Steele commanded all the NWMP in the Yukon area, and was a member of the territorial council. As the force reported directly to Ottawa, Steele had almost free rein to run things as he chose, always with an eye towards maintaining law, order, and Canadian sovereignty. He moved to [[Dawson City]] in September 1898.