The origins of the Veterans' Association can be found in the history of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP). On the 20th., of May 1873 Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald's bill "respecting the administration of justice and the establishment of a police force for the North-West Territories" passed. It provided for a civil force in uniform drilled in simple movements taken from the British Cavalry Regulations, and to be conducted much upon the system of a cavalry regiment.
Recruiting for this force began in September of 1873 and by October three troops of fifty men each had been organized. The first man to enlist was A.H. Griesbach who had served previously in the 15th., Hussars and Cape Mounted Rifles (of South Africa).
Training of these men, prior to departure for the west was undertaken at Fort York in Toronto with
the members barracked in the Stanley Barracks (still standing to this day).
Travelling to their duty area involved the now famous March West. In the 1874 conclusion to his first report to the Canadian government on the activities of the NWMP the Officer in Charge wrote,
“I feel, sir, that in the foregoing report, I have but very inadequately represented the doings of the force. The broad fact is, however, apparent – a Canadian force hastily raised, armed, and equipped, and not under martial law, in a few months marched two thousand miles through a country for the most part as unknown as it proved bare of pasture and scanty in the supply of water. Of such a march under such adverse conditions, all true Canadians may well be proud. To the Government of the Dominion my heartfelt thanks are tendered for having placed me in a position which entitled me to claim that I was a member of a corps which performed one of the most extraordinary marches on record." (Signed) G. A. French, N.W.M.P.
Eventually these original members began to leave the Force and on April 18th., 1886 the first recorded meeting of the North West Mounted Police [NWMP] ex-members took place in Calgary at the town hall with twenty four (24) ex-members attending. The first recorded dinner of ex-members took place at the Royal hotel Calgary on November 4, 1886.
