Superintendent C. Constantine to Commissioner L. Herchmer

[Superintendent Charles Constantine, commanding the first Mounted Police detachment in the Yukon, writes from Fortymile about the situation in the Yukon to Commissioner L. Herchmer, 5 January 1896].

Dear Mr. Commissioner: I wrote you in Oct. last. You may or may not have received it. I have sent by this mail my report so that I need not touch on matters connected with the building [of a police post] in this letter except in a general way. Taking all in all we are very comfortable. Our chief trouble and work is in procuring fuel. We burn about 2 cords of wood a day in the severe weather, all of which has to be cut and hauled by the men a distance of 1/3 of a mile. The wood is nearly all green. I have been obliged to buy some dry wood, as a reserve, at a cost of $8 per cord delivered at the foot of the bank opposite the Barrack gate. The men there haul it up and cut and distribute it to the offices &c. The [illegible] stove “Hazlewood” does the work required of it well. It heats a room 60 x 22 [feet] and the men do not complain in the least of cold. For the past 10 days the thermometer has registered from 45 to 65 below zero [F.] and the Lord only knows how low it will go tonight, as it is now appears to be colder than any previous night.

Ogilvie [surveyor, later Commissioner of the Yukon] has spent the Xmas tide with us amusing himself by putting up a sun dial in the square which will be of great use to us when the sun appears, as time in the past has been guesswork. . . . I am anxious that either yourself or Mr. White [Comptroller of the police] will come in next summer. Unless one or the other do so you will not be able to realize the nature of the country, the difficulties of traveling and what we have had to contend with, you will also be able to judge for yourself your wants and necessities. . . . Since I wrote you last Sergt. Brown has taken his discharge . . . . Brown took his discharge of his own free will. He has acted very badly, and had things have come to my knowledge while he was in the Force he would not have left it a staff Sergt. I send you statements made voluntarily and brought about by his conduct official and private since his discharge. . . .

The facts are these—the U.S. Meteorological station at San Francisco sent some weather instruments for scientific purposes to Mr. Harper, a respectable trader at Fort Selkirk 240 miles above here. Along with the instruments came two official letters, one from the Supt. or other person in authority, the other from the British Vice Consul there stating they were for scientific purposes and on loan for that purpose. . . . The official letters were addressed to me as Customs officer here. I handed them over to Brown, who had a commission as Customs officer [the police acted in this capacity], to file in my office. He seized the instruments refusing any reason to the parties for so doing although they offered $100 as security or duty if collectible. He refused to do anything and now has them in his possession. . . . I told him his conduct was harsh, tyrannical & unjustifiable. This was all done in order to get even in a private matter. I could tell you many other things but will not take up yr time or my own in doing so. Ogilvie is afraid it may work against us in the settlement of the [Alaska] Boundary dispute, as the Americans are very touchy about matters of this sort. The authorities in Washington have been most kind to him giving all facilities for going through their territory with his men goods & instruments. . . .

Bishop Bompas is a disturbing element. He has no use for any person unless he is an Indian. Has the utmost contempt for the whites generally and myself in particular because I would not give an order to the Dr. to attend Indians, in fact to go over a couple of times in the week to see if they were all right. The Indians here are chiefly American ones, a lazy shiftless lot, living on the miners through the prostitution of their squaws. There is a comfortable living for them if they would work which they will not do, preferring to take what they can get so long as they do not starve. During the fish and game season they could procure sufficient of both to keep them comfortably during the winter, but no, they must have a feast and gorge themselves so long as any food lasts. There has been no crime here, my action of sending a couple of hard cases down the river last fall, was a warning to many of the same kind, who went on their own acct., and the few left have behaved themselves. . . .

I have had a lot of worry and anxiety since I arrived here, anxiety for the winter and the comfort of all hands, want of confidence in some who should have, if not lessened the burden, not have added to it—I look for your support in what I have done or may have to do.