Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Royal Canadian Mounted Police, constabulary organized (1873) as the Northwest Mounted Police to bring law and order to the Canadian west. In 1920 the name was changed to the present title. The corps, which gained a romantic reputation for daring exploits and persistence in trailing criminals, originally numbered 300 men; they came to be known as Red Coats, Riders of the Plains, and, most popularly, Mounties. The force later absorbed the provincial police forces of all the territories and provinces except Ontario and Quebec and enforces all federal and provincial laws except in those provinces. It also takes part in selected international peacekeeping activites. The force numbers about 16,000.

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Royal Canadian Mounted Police

 or Mounties

Federal police force of Canada. It is also the criminal and provincial force in all provinces except Ontario and Quebec and the only force in the Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut territories. It was founded as the North West Mounted Police (1873) with a force of 300 men to bring order to western Canada, where U.S. traders were creating havoc by trading whiskey to the Indians for furs. That success was followed by peacekeeping in the Klondike gold rush (1898) and later settlement of the west. The group assumed its current name in 1920, when it became a federal force and its headquarters were moved to Ottawa.