The Frontier

Frontier Statesman of the Canadian Northwest
Frederick Haultain
Copyright 1985 Western Producer prairie books
198 pages,
ISBN 0-88833-147-9.

Like Edmonton and Calgary, Fort Macleod had a newspaper, the Gazette,and the issue of September 26 noted that, "The coach on Tuesday brought in Mr. F. W. G. Haultain who intends opening an office and practicing law in Macleod, as will be seen by a reference to our advertisements. Mr. Haultain is a graduate of the University of Toronto.... Now that we have two lawyers in the town we may look for lively scenes at future meetings of the court."

The other lawyer, already established, enjoyed both the prestige and advantage of being the solicitor for the I. G. Baker Company and the South West Stock Association. The new lawyer's future would be uncertain because of competition. The advertisement to which the Gazetteeditor referred was extremely brief: "F. W. G. Haultain, Barrister, Solicitor, Conveyancer, etc., Fort Macleod, N.W.T."

Business would not be very brisk for a while. Haultain understood the handicap of being a newcomer, but hoped to collect enough money to pay office rent and personal living expenses. And while waiting for a bigger demand for his professional services, he would make an effort to become better acquainted with the community, especially with the Mounted Police officers and those quaint characters who had been attracted by this outpost and were stamping the imprints of their own personalities upon the district. He was anxious to capture the confidence of the distinguished keeper of the hotel, short, plump, hairy-faced Old Kamoose Taylor. This man of many parts came originally from the Isle of Wight. Leaving home he sailed around the southern tip of South America and set out to be a missionary amid the mining madness of the gold rush to the Cariboo country. This, however, was not very financially rewarding and he came by way of Fort Edmonton to the prairies to try his hand at trading with the plains Indians-whiskey for buffalo hides.

What was flatteringly called trade whiskey was more correctly a dangerous concoction which could contain any or all of laudanum, painkiller, ginger, turpentine, essence of vanilla, red ink, tobacco, and alcohol, all well diluted with slough water. Two cups of the poisonous mixture was the customary price in return for a bison hide, and the skins rolled in to be piled high on the traders' wagons.

The monetary return was excellent until the free enterprising operations were cut short by the coming of the Mounted Police. Harry Taylor had the distinction, if not the honor, of being one of the first of the traders to be arrested by the Mounties. Facing the necessity of changing his professional way of life again, he fixed upon the idea of conducting a hotel business, "right under the noses of the Mounted Police." Now, about the time of Haultain's coming, Taylor was in the process of moving to a new hotel structure in a recently developed section of the town, a safe distance above the flood level which was a constant threat to the original site. The hotel was new but the rules were the same.

Old Kamoose continued to be one of Fort Macleod's "showpieces," but there were others, like Fred Kanouse, also a convert from dealing in firewater, and Jerry Potts, who was a guide and interpreter for the Mounted Police. Another in the same category was J, G. "Kootenai" Brown who exchanged the elegant uniform of the Queen's Lifeguards in London for the rough garb of the frontiersman. He came in from Waterton Lakes a few days after Haultain's arrival to display ten specimen heads from Rocky Mountain sheep, "the finest lot ever brought to town," as the Gazetteeditor noted.

Then there were the various salty fellows who drove stagecoaches and bullteams and stopped briefly at the hotel to exchange stories from the trails and brush up on their cussing. There were also ranchers and cowboys who came to town on Saturday nights to buy supplies, do some drinking, and get into a few fights.

Mounted Police headquarters at this time were at Regina, but Commissioner A. G. Irvine--third commissioner in the history of the force-was at Fort Macleod when Haultain arrived. The young lawyer met him and found him a congenial fellow. In the course of their meetings, Haultain heard the commissioner relating his fairly recent visits with the much-feared Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, and the chief's version of the circumstances leading to the tragic Battle of the Little Big Horn, more commonly called the Custer Massacre. As Sitting Bull told the story, the Indians' part in the awful clash was strictly defensive, although there was no denial of Indian anger about the treatment they had received-notably, broken promises over land. The native people had grown to hate everybody with a white skin-at least until coming to Canada in 1877 where they discovered the men of the North West Mounted Police to be driven by justice.

Jerry Potts was already well known in the country, both to Indians and non-Indians, and Haultain was immediately fascinated by the indestructible little halfbreed. Jerry was friendly, but engaging him in conversation, as the patient Haultain discovered, was not easy because Potts was a man of action and few words. Even at that early date, the Potts legends were growing and this man who guided the force in 1874 to the place where Fort Macleod was built, did not need to talk about himself. Everybody knew of his boyhood fearlessness in pursuing his father's killer from Fort Benton into the Canadian foothills, where he fought him and took his revenge. Likewise, everybody knew that Jerry was the native son pressed hurriedly into service to lead the Blood Indians against an attack by Crees in 1870. The Bloods won a signal victory in that, the last major war between the two traditionally enemy tribes.

Jerry's appearance was not what Haultain or anyone hearing of a native superman would have expected. Instead of being an imposing giant with barrel chest and bulging muscles, he was small and rather insignificant in general appearance, bowlegged, slope-shouldered, and pinched in facial features. But Jerry, as all who had known him for his ten years of service to the force would testify, was all man, and respected and admired by Indians and non-Indians alike. Possessing the instincts of a homing pigeon, he had many times rescued members of the Mounted Police from hardships and dangers. Officers were happy to know that regardless of the darkness or the loss of visibility in a prairie blizzard, Jerry remained unperturbed and able to furnish the essential directions.