Samuel Benfield Steele (~1849 - 1919)
Sam Steele was born on a farm a few miles west of present-day Orillia, Ontario to Elmes Yelverton and Anne Maclan Macdonald Steele.1) In 1870, Steele volunteered for a British-Canadian expedition to maintain order at Red River (Manitoba). After the expedition settled at Upper Fort Gary he was promoted to corporal. The battalion was dismantled in 1871 and Steele returned to Ontario. In 1873, Steele received permission to join a new mounted police force for the North-West Territories and he was given the rank of staff constable.2)
When gold was discovered in the Yukon, North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) Superintendent Aylesworth Bowen Perry were ordered to establish customs posts at the coastal passes and at Bennett Lake. In February/March 1898, Steele waited in Skagway for police reinforcements for the Yukon to arrive. Under his command were officers he respected: Z.T. Wood, Robert Belcher, W.D. Jarvis, and D’Arcy Strickland. James Morrow Walsh had been appointed to be in charge of both the civil administration and the police. In 1896, Walsh wrote to Prime Minister Laurier, urging him to eliminate the Mounted Police so Steele did not anticipate much support from him, on top of the logistics of supporting 200 men scattered along 700 kilometres of the route into the Klondike.3)
There was no support from Walsh, but not for the reasons that Steele anticipated. Walsh had agreed to a short-term position in the Yukon and was reluctant to make decisions, so Steele was left with a free hand. He made up a requirement that each stampeder must bring in a six-month supply of food, the famous ‘ton of goods,’ or be denied entry to the Yukon River drainage. This had an unexpected benefit for the First Nation packers on the Chilkoot Pass as they could charge high rates.4)
In April 1898, Steele was headquartered at Bennett Lake and estimated the population to be nearly 30,00 people. The police post at Tagish was established in April and Steele moved there as soon as the river ice allowed. He expected to stay at Tagish, but Flora Shaw’s reports of widespread corruption and chaos in Dawson convinced him that he was needed there. He had direction from Ottawa to wait for the new Yukon Commissioner, William Ogilvie, and they and their entourage boarded a steamer for Dawson on September 2nd. Steele was able to use Ogilvie’s familiarity with the land to locate police posts along the river.5)
The new Yukon Act, making the Yukon distinct from the larger North-West Territories, provided for a Council and Commissioner Ogilvie appointed four men: Legal advisor F.C. Wade, Register of Lands J.E. Girouard, Judge of the Territorial Court T.H. McGuire, and Sam Steele, commanding officer of the NWMP. By the time of the first Council sitting in October 1898, Wade and McGuire had been replaced by W.H.P. Clement and C.A. Dugas respectively.6)
A major grievance in the goldfields was the ten percent royalty charged by the government on gold produced. Steele felt that the collection of the royalties was not as honest as it should be so Ogilvie agreed to transfer collection to the police. Then Steele set up a network of undercover detectives in the mining camps to make sure that royalties were paid.7)
By 1899, it was evident that the extra pay for Yukon service was not enough to cover costs. Steele made extra money from his duties as a magistrate in minor court cases. He also bought a quarter interest in two mining claims on Bonanza and Sulphur creeks. This was before the government banned government employees from buying claims.8)
Steele got into trouble when he voiced his views about James Duncan McGregor as Clifford Sifton’s choice for Yukon liquor licensing commissioner. Lord Minto, the Governor General of Canada visited the Klondike in August 1900 and he remembered hearing that the Yukon Council refused to follow Sifton’s recommendation because NWMP Superintendent Steele stated that McGregor had been tried for horse stealing.9) Steele sat on the liquor board and knew that this position was also potentially lucrative with considerable room for graft.10) McGregor had been a strong political supporter of Clifford Sifton since 1866 and Sifton appointed McGregor Inspector of Mines in the Yukon in 1897.11) When Sifton heard of Steele’s objections to McGregor’s new appointment, he terminated Steele’s position in the Yukon.12) At the end of August, Steele heard from a friend in Ottawa that someone there had received a statement from Steele making charges against some of the officers in the administration. He wrote to his wife asking if any of his guarded statements had been repeated.13)
Steele was well liked in Dawson and well-wishers and the miners presented him with a poke of gold dust when he was transferred out in September 1899.14) The presenters told Steele that the gold was for his wife, knowing that Steele could not accept the gift for himself. 15)