By Tristin Hopper
News out of Tuktoyuktuk: a young mountie fearlessly saved a suicidal man from a hypothermic demise. RCMP Constable Shaun De Grandpre was awoken at 4:43 am by the news that a distraught was looking to throw himself into the icy waters of the Beaufort Sea. The rookie officer rushed to the scene, where he kicked off his boots, threw off his hat and plunged into the icy waters to save the man.
For once, a good, old-fashioned Mountie story. A young, brave constable risks injury to save a troubled man. Nobody was tased. Nobody was shot and nobody died mysteriously in police custody. This is an RCMP story for the tourists, and it’s a story that’s been in short supply these last few years. Especially around the Yukon, where our newspapers and airwaves have been filled with news of Raymond Silverfox’s in-custody death. “What happened to the Mounties of old?” you might ask. Where are the storied red-serged lawmen? The clean-cut officers that uphold the law and, according to this well-known educational video, keep us free from gun-toting stereotypes. Where have the Sgt. Prestons gone? The Dudley Do-Rights?
Naturally, the mythological Mountie never really existed. For every Lost Patrol or Hunt for the Mad Trapper, there’s always been plenty of uglier episodes that never hit the history books. While a red-jacketed Errol Flynn was shooting bad guys on screen, the real Mounties were shepherding First Nations children to residential schools. But why so many black marks? It could be the fact that, until recently RCMP misconduct was investigated internally. It could be the inevitable result of sending thousands of young, inexperienced officers to Canada’s most remote, dysfunctional communities. Or it could be the sheer size of the force; the RCMP employs more officers than Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa combined – putting them more at risk for “bad apples” to crop up. Just look at the scandal roster of the 37,000 member NYPD.
The Mounties have always been a highly controversial organization, and only Hollywood has ever said differently. Still, every once in a while, an RCMP officer rescues a suicidal man from the Arctic Ocean, or a family pet from a cougar, and for a brief moment, the RCMP ceases being a complex, scandal-ridden organism, and briefly morphs into what we’ve always hoped it was; a force of good protecting us from evil.
