TRANSCRIPT

The two halves of the North West Mounted Police assembled at Fort Dufferin at last on June 19, 1874. The new recruits rode north from where the railway ended at Fargo, North Dakota. The other detachment rode south from Fort Garry.

Colonel French expressed his pleasure in his force, particularly the new recruits and their fine, new horses especially selected for size and grace.

Sergeant Major Sam Steele, already a veteran of the prairies and a member of the Fort Garry group, expressed his admiration and the seeds of doubt:

'The Left wing was composed of a fine, carefully selected and well-educated body of men with exceptionally good horses. These were all over fifteen and a half hands, with almost perfect forms, and were admitted in Toronto to be the best ever shipped from that city. But they were soon to have a hard time, and their perfect forms were reducted to living skeletons.'

Narrated by Kris Nygren