The Great Authors of North-West Mountie Fiction

IAN ANDERSON   "By age six, the Australian Ian Anderson had already decided what he wanted to be when he grew up -- a red-coated Canadian Mountie. By the age of seven, he also knew he wanted to be a writer." These words began the author's bio in Seal Book's first printing of CORPORAL CAVANNAGH in 1983. With the publication of CAVANNAGH, Anderson had already achieved both dreams.

Anderson began by joining the South Australian Mounted Police, where he "learned to ride a horse, fight bush fires and battle with sword and bayonet." He then journeyed to Canada, where he achieved his dream of joining and serving in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His first postings were in Alberta: at Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, Coutts and Medicine Hat -- the very settings of the early exploits of the NWMP. He later -- after serving in the Royal Papua-New Guinea Constabulary -- returned home to Australia. As well as working as a private investigator in Melbourne, he sat down to write.

In 1982, he began writing his Scarlet Rider Series, starting with CORPORAL CAVANNAGH. After leaving the U.S. Seventh Cavalry, John Tarlton Cavannagh rides north, where he joins the newly-arrived North-West Mounted Police. The novel was first published by Seal Books in Canada, who published his next two: THE RETURN OF CAVANNAGH and BEYOND THE STONE HEAPS. STONE HEAPS dealt with arrival of Sitting Bull's Sioux in Canada after the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

When Zebra Books of New York bought the World rights to the Scarlet Riders Series, they republished his first three titles and put out four more up to 1988: SERGEANT O'REILLY, FORT TERROR, THE FLYING PATROL and DEAD OR ALIVE. The character of Sergeant Hugh O'Reilly "who hailed from Halifax... was loosely based on Inspector Fitzgerald -- or perhaps inspired would be a better word -- of the Lost Patrol of 1911 fame," says Anderson.

While working on an article about the friendship between Sitting Bull and Inspector James Walsh of the Mounties for Wild West Magazine, Anderson decided to broaden the article into a book. The result was SITTING BULL'S BOSS, an excellent study of the subject.

RALPH CONNOR   When Charles William Gordon (1860-1937) first began to publish articles about his experiences in the Northwest during the mid-1890's, he didn't know that he was embarking on a literary career that would make him one of the best selling authors of the early 20th Century. Educated at the Universities of Toronto and Edinburgh, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1890. After three years of missionary work in Banff, Alberta, he returned to Winnipeg, where he began to write and publish stories under the pen-name "Ralph Connor."

His stories, published in Westminster Magazine, reflected his belief in "red-blooded Christianity." When they were collected in book-form as BLACK ROCK: A Tale of the Selkirks, he gained an international readership. His next book, THE SKY PILOT, became a best seller. His life after that was divided between that of writing and of serving Church and Country. During the First World War, he served overseas as a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces.

It was the publication of three adventure novels that made his reputation as an author.

THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY told of the rowdy Highlanders of Glengarry -- their exploits in the lumber camps of the Northwoods, their fights with wolves and other men, the joyful maple-sugar parties, the passionate church meetings... They were men, as he wrote in his autobiography, "as wild as the wild creatures of the forest in which they lived, fearing no man or beast or devil."

The other two adventure novels were CORPORAL CAMERON OF THE NORTH WEST MOUNTED POLICE: A Tale of the MacLeod Trail (1912) and THE PATROL OF THE SUNDANCE TRAIL (1914). Both told of the exploits of Allan Cameron of Her Majesty's North-West Mounted Police. Connor based the character of Cameron on the real-life Sergeant William Fury. In fact, the first book recounts a fictionalized version of Fury's arrest of the violent railroad strikers at Kicking Horse Pass in 1885. SUNDANCE TRAIL deals with the unrest of the Blackfoot Nation during the bloody Northwest Rebellion. Connor's technique of using real cases and real Mounties as the basis for his stories became common for Canadians writing about the NWMP.

Ralph Connor, as Dick Harrison puts it in his BEST MOUNTED POLICE STORIES, "did more to create the literary image of the Mountie than any other writer, probably because he had a gift for telling uncomplicated adventure stories."

Ralph Connor's autobiography is POSTSCRIPT TO ADVENTURE.

JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD    When James Oliver Curwood (1879-1927) was expelled from school in his birthplace of Owosso, Michigan at age 16, it was a blessing in disguise. It began a wandering life that would eventually take him to the wilds of northern Canada.

First as a reporter, then as a novelist and short story writer, he would spend a lifetime telling of his wilderness travels. He travelled by canoe, by snow shoe and by dog sled, throughout the Peace River country, the Hudson Bay wilderness and the Arctic tundra. His translation of the Cree meaning of Manitoba -- "God's Country" -- would become world renowned.

While best remembered for his masterwork KAZAN THE WOLF DOG, his many other Northwesterns were best sellers in the 1910's and 20's.

Among his best Mountie novels are PHILIP STEELE OF THE NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE, THE HONOR OF THE BIG SNOWS, THE GOLDEN SNARE, THE COUNTRY BEYOND, THE RIVER'S END: A New Story of God's Country, THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN: A Story of the Three River Country and THE FLAMING FOREST: A Novel of the Canadian Northwest. His collection BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY contained many Mountie short stories, including THE FIDDLING MAN -- A Story of the North-West Mounted Police.

By 1922, Curwood's writings had made him a very wealthy man.  He lived out a youthful fantasy by building the "Curwood Castle" in Ossasso.  Built in the style of an 18th Century French chateau, his castle overlooked the Shiawassee River.  In one of the home's two large turrets, Curwood built his library and office, where he would do the rest of his writing. 

RYERSON JOHNSON  Walter Ryerson Johnson (1901-1995) was born in Divernon, Illinois. He also published works under the names Matthew Blood, Peter Field, Brett Halliday, and (with Lester Dent) Kenneth Robeson. He attended the University of Illinois and worked as a coal miner, warehouse manager and seaman, as well as travelling extensively thoughout the US and Canada.

At age 25, Johnson published his first short story in Adventure, a pulp magazine. His writing career really exploded when he took the advice of popular Northwestern writer William Byron Mowery, to write Mountie stories. Johnson said, "I didn't know a mounted policeman from a uniformed doorman, but Bill loaned me books and I got more from the library. Official Mounted Police Bulletins and a book by Wasburn Pike -- The Great Canadian Barren Lands -- supplied fundamentals." Soon he sold his first Northwestern, "Cougar Kelly Gets a Break," and his career was picking up. He published numerous Mountie yarns and "Northerns" in the pulp magazines, stories like "The Carcajou and the Loup Garou," "All Trees and Snow," "The Eskimo Express," "The Phantom of Forgotten River," "Webs for One," "Caribou Gold," "Back Trail Shadow," "Wood on the Snow" and "The Dangerous Dan McGrew."

He described pulp fiction as "A never-never land that existed only in the glowing imagination of the writer and the transient 'suspension of disbelief' of the reader. Bigger than life. Adult fairy stories."

JAMES B HENDRYX   James Beardsley Hendrix (1880-1963) was born in Sauk Center, Minnesota. Hendryx worked as a traveling salesman, cowhand, tan bark buyer and insurance agent, before heading for the gold fields of the Klondike. It was Hendryx's experiences in the Klondike that inspired him to write Northwesterns. While working as a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, he began his career as a fiction writer.

With the publication in 1915 of THE PROMISE: A Tale of the Great Northwest, his career was launched. DOWNEY OF THE MOUNTED (1926) gave the world one of the great Mountie characters. Told with humor, at times wry, Hendryx's vision of the Northwest was closer to reality. As well as Downey, the author also created Black John Smith, leader of an outlaw community at Halfaday Creek, just inside the Alaska border.

Among his best Mountie fiction are OAK AND IRON: Of These Be the Breed of the North, CORPORAL DOWNEY TAKES THE TRAIL, BLOOD OF THE NORTH and AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.

Once he became a full time author, he worked and lived in two homes on both sides of the Canadian-US border: one in Sutton's Bay, Michigan and one in Thessalon, Ontario. All in all, he wrote 36 Northwestern novels and story collections.

WILLIAM BYRON MOWERY   William Byron Mowery (1899-1957) was known as "The Zane Grey of the Canadian Northwest." A teacher, naturalist and novelist, he was born in Adelphia, Ohio. He served in the Tank Corps during the last year of World War I.

From 1929 to 1948, he published fifteen novels and story collections that, as a total work, may be the most literate and realistic of the Mountie genre. Some of his best are HEART OF THE NORTH, PHANTOM CANOE, THE BLACK AUTOMATIC, VENGEANCE TRAIL, THE GIRL FROM GOD'S MERCIE and RESURRECTION RIVER. THE LONG ARM OF THE MOUNTED (1948) collected some of the best short Northwesterns ever written, including "The Long Shadow," "The Constable of Lone Sioux," and "A Lamb and Some Slaughtering."

HARWOOD STEELE   Harwood Elmes Robert Steele (1897-1978) may have been in the best position of any would-be writer to tell the story of the Mounties -- he was the only son of the greatest Mountie of them all: Sam Steele. Harwood grew up in a household hearing all the adventures and tribulations of being a Mounted Policeman in turbulent times. He got the inside scoop of Sam Steele's life and character, and later wrote it down in fictional form.

His own life was just as adventurous. After growing up in Fort MacLeod, Alberta and Ontario, he joined the Canadian Army, rising to the rank of Major. His book THE CANADIANS IN FRANCE 1915-1918, reflected some of his own experiences during the Great War. After working as a journalist and as a press representative for the CPR, Harwood went with the Canadian Government expedition into the High Arctic in 1925.

Harwood began writing Mountie fiction in the early 1920's. His technique was to take actual police cases and characters and fictionalize them, "to present fact in the form of romantic fiction."

Two novels, SPIRIT-OF-IRON: An Authentic Novel of the Northwest Mounted and THE MARCHING CALL, were based on the life of his father. Other Mountie novels and collections appeared between 1923 and 1961 -- I SHALL ARISE, THE NINTH CIRCLE, TO EFFECT AN ARREST: Adventures of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, TALES OF THE NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE, GHOSTS RETURNING, and RED SERGE: Stories of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

RED SERGE contained dramatizations of the harrowing Northern experience of Constable Pedley ("Lunatic Patrol"), early exploits of the Police Service dogs ("Pal" and "A Dog Won't Lie") and Yukon Gold Rush incidents ("The Race For Molly Scott").

In his Foreword to SPIRIT-OF-IRON, he laid down his philosophy of all of his fiction: "to present the Force as it was and is and not as portrayed by well-meaning but ignorant writers of the 'red love, two-gun' variety, and it is my hope that, through this book, the reader may obtain a clearer conception of the marvellous devotion to duty, the high idealism, the splendid efficiency which have made the Mounted Police famous than any to be derived from these inaccurate romances."