The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1918-12-19
EARLY WESTERN CANADA
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Unique journey of Troops and Other Events of Early
Days in That Interesting Country
Selected

they conveyed their guns and
stores by the usual means of in
land transport used in the country.
They were sent out under secret
instructions from the War Office.
Colonel Crofton remained him
self for one year, at the close of
which he was succeeded by Major
Griffith, who along with the troop
under his command, returned home
in 1848."
At about that time Lieutenant
Colonel Caldwell became Governor
of the Red River settlement, and
he took with him into the West a
force of enrolled pensioners, num-
bering Sc, engaged to serve for
seven years. They were induced
to 60 partly as settlers, each SER
geant being promised a free grant
of forty acres of land after arrival
in the colony, each corporal thirty
acres-small grants, to be sure, in
comparison with the vastness of
the unoccupied area then available,
and even small in comparison with
the grant now given to the home
steader. There was, however, rea-
son for the smallness of the grants,
because the area set aside for the
purpose was very limited, in fact,
it was found to be too small to per-
NIT all the promised grants being
given and an arrangement had to
be carried out, whereby sums of
money were given the pensioners
instead of land. In 1856 the seven
years. term of enrolment expired.
and the corps were disbanded, the
Colonel returning to England along
with number of the men. Others
went to Eastern Canada, while the
remainder stayed in the Red River
settlement.
For two years there were no
troops in the colony. Then COM
pany of Royal Canadian Riflemen
went out. This corps formed part
of a regiment recruited for service
in Canada, although maintained at
the expense of the Imperial Gov
ernment.
After the first two years of it's
service had expired, the entire
body of officers were relieved by
gentlemen from other companies
of the regiment, and in 1861, after
having been stationed in the coun-
try for four years, the company
returned to Eastern Canada by
ship, sailing from York Factory,
on Hudson Bay.
From that time (l861) to 1870,
there were no troops. in the Red
River settlement, which accounts
for the mastery Reil obtained and
held from the summer of 1859 to
September, 1870, when the Red
River Expedition, led by Sir George
Garnet (the late Viscount) Wolse-
ley, arrived at Fort Garry.
Such. in outline, is the story of
the going of British Canadian
troops to the Canadian West from
the time of the Oregon Boundary
dispute until the transfer of the
West-then known as Rupert's
Land-to the Dominion of Canada,
and the creation of the Province of
Manitoba, which absorbed the Red
River, or Selkirk Settlement, that
along the banks of the
Red and Assiniboine Rivers, near
the site of the present city of
Winnipeg.
Fort Gary, the old Hudson Bay
trading post, was the capital of the
Red River Colony and the nucleus
of Winnipeg. The fort, the ware
houses, the enclosing walls, have
long since disappeared, but the
main gateway to the Fort still
stands monument recalling those
long ago days, when the making
of the Canadian West had scarcely
commenced.