Charles Constantine (1846 – 1912)
	
Charles Constantine was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England to Isaac and Mary Rhodes Constantine. The family immigrated to Lower Canada in the late 1840s. Charles volunteered for the military in 1870 and arrived in Red River, Manitoba in June of that year. He and Henrietta Armstrong married about 1873 and Constantine was appointed deputy sheriff for Manitoba under his father-in-law, Edward Armstrong. In 1880, Constantine became Manitoba’s chief of police, and he was later an inspector of licenses. He re-entered the military on the outbreak of the North-West Rebellion in 1885, enlisting with the Winnipeg Light infantry Rifles as a captain. In August 1886, he applied to the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) and was accepted as an inspector. He went to Banff to create a detachment for the new national park and two years later he was posted to the Regina division.((Glen Wright, “Charles Constantine.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2018 website: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/constantine_charles_14E.html))
	
William Ogilvie was the only Canadian government official in the Yukon River drainage in 1893. He saw the number of American miners in the Fortymile River area, and the continuing discoveries of goldfields in the drainage, and recommended that the government send an administrator to the area.((Linda Johnson, //At the Heart of Gold: The Yukon Commissioner’s Office 1898-2010.// Legislative Assembly of Yukon, 2012: 6-7.)) Constantine was chosen by NWMP commissioner Lawrence William Herchmer for special duty to survey conditions in Canada’s Yukon River basin. Constantine was four months at Forty Mile in 1894 and then returned east to write a report. In response, Ottawa sent up twenty men under Constantine’s command in 1895. They constructed Fort Constantine, the first NWMP post in the Yukon, at the mouth of the Fortymile River.((Glen Wright, “Charles Constantine.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2018 website: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/constantine_charles_14E.html)) In1898, a special order in council marked the Yukon as a separate district of the North-West Territories.((David Morrison, //The Politics of The Yukon Territory, 1898-1909.// Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968: 9.))
Constantine transferred his battalion to Dawson after gold was discovered on Bonanza Creek. He acted as Gold Commissioner and Dominion Land Agent until Thomas Fawcett was sent to relive him.((Linda Johnson, //At the Heart of Gold: The Yukon Commissioner’s Office 1898-2010.// Legislative Assembly of Yukon, 2012: 10.)) In the winter of 1897-98, Constantine had his detective infiltrate American organization to in fear of an American conspiracy to overthrow Canadian control. Constantine left the Yukon in June 1898 with the diary note "Left Dawson per Str. //C H Hamilton.// Thank God for the release -." ((Morris Zaslow. //The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870 - 1914.// Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1971: 99, 108, 138.))

Constantine was promoted to superintendent in 1897, and in 1898 returned to command at Moosomin, Regina and Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta. In 1902, he went on a confidential mission to investigate the whaling industry on the arctic coast.((Glen Wright, “Charles Constantine.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2018 website: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/constantine_charles_14E.html)) Superintendent Constantine inaugurated the northernmost division of Division "G" after he travelled down the Mackenzie to view the situation at Herschel Island.  As long as whaling continued, a detachment was stationed on the island or patrolled from Fort MacPherson. The police collected custom duties owing on the whalers trade in Canada.((Morris Zaslow. //The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870 - 1914.// Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1971: 99, 108, 138.)) 

Inspector Constantine was put in charge when N Division (Athabasca District) was created in 1905. His task was to supervise the construction of a 750-mile pack trail from Fort St. John to the head of Teslin Lake. He was unable to reach the trail head in 1906 but returned in 1907 to assess the progress. He relinquished his command later that year due to ill health and returned to his headquarters at Lesser Slave Lake. The half-completed trail was abandoned in 1908. That year he assumed command of A Division at Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, and three years later was transferred to Prince Albert where he contracted typhoid fever. He went to California to recuperate and died there after an [unrelated?] operation.((Glen Wright, “Charles Constantine.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2018 website: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/constantine_charles_14E.html))