TRANSCRIPT

In 1875, a committee put forth a proposal to Inspector Jarvis that detailed their willingness to pay the difference between the contract price of the timber at Fort Saskatchewan and that of Fort Edmonton, in order to secure the building of the Mounted Police Headquarters in Edmonton. Jarvis, a man of strong will, got angry and reactively built the headquarters 20 miles east on the South side of the North Saskatchewan River. So be it! Construction for the headquarters started in the spring of 1875, with a contract for wood delivered to the chosen site. The police recruits built the fort from scratch with some assistance through contract labour from the settlement. In 1885, the troop swelled from 20 to 100 in order to protect and serve the barracks and settlement community from the Metis uprising. This, in turn, caused another discussion on the location of the headquarters, which again resulted in contention between Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan. The latter prevailed.

Narrated by Kris Nygren