Gold rush fever in the 1860s brought thousands of miners to the new territories of British Columbia and the Yukon armed with rifles, revolvers, and bowie knives. Among them were thugs and outlaws lured by the promise of easy riches. Within months of the first arrivals a provincial police force was formed--the first in western Canada--and constables recruited to preserve order in the colonies. These intrepid lawmen patrolled vast regions of Vancouver Island, the Cariboo, the Kootenays, and the Klondike. They lived in rugged conditions and brought their prisoners by horseback, stagecoach, or canoe to courtrooms that were often hundreds of kilometers away. When no judges were available they evolved their own ways of settling disputes and meting out frontier justice. This dramatic collection of stories recounts some of the most notorious cases of the period--from Boone Helm, the west's most vicious criminal known for shooting his victims in the back and eating at least one of them, to the Wild McLeans, a gang of adolescent brothers who terrorized the Okanagan and Nicola Valley, to the Yukon's (3z(BChristmas Day assassins, whose elaborate plan of escape failed to outsmart the clever watch of the North West Mounted Police. Together they offer a vivid profile of outlaw life and the pioneer lawmen who maintained order in a frontier land.--Publisher's description.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references (page 140) and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Description conventions
- rda
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 364.1092/2
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- Distributor
- Canadian Electronic Library (Firm),
- General Note
- Repackaged from: Outlaws & lawmen of Western Canada Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn-bc
- ISBN
- 9781927527917 9781927527894
- LCCN
- HV6805
- LCCN Item number
- L38 2014eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (144 pages)
- Published in
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)kck00237079 (OCoLC)961369370 (CaOOCEL)447089
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Title proper/short title
- Frontier justice in British Columbia and Yukon, 1858-1911
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 6
- Publisher’s Note 7
- Prologue 8
- 1: British Columbia and Yukon’s First Police Forces 10
- 2: Western Canada’s Pioneer Lawmen 14
- 3: Boone Helm—The Murdering Cannibal 42
- 4: Frontier Justice on Stud Horse Creek 64
- 5: The Wild McLean Gang 71
- 6: Yukon’s Christmas Day Assassins 90
- 7: The Saga of Simon Gun-an-Noot 111
- 8: Phantoms of the Rangeland 127
- Selected Bibliography 141
- List of Authors 142
- Index 143