The Northern Review 51 (2021): 189–192 https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.006
Book Review
Sam
Steele: A Biography. By Rod Macleod. University of Alberta Press, 2019. 407
pages.
The
number of significant events in the first fifty years of Canadian history that
Steele participated in—the Red River Resistance, the North-West Rebellion, the
Klondike gold rush, the Boer War, and the First World War—is remarkable. As
Macleod writes, “by the time he died in 1919, he had missed very few of the
epic adventures that shaped Canada during the previous fifty years,
and had been a leading figure in several of them” (1). But Macleod’s
focus is on Steele the person and his experiences. He describes Steele as an
ambitious man, as is clear throughout the book. Steele “rose high,” Macleod
writes, “but always, it seemed, with the ultimate prize just beyond his reach”
(xv). He was also a committed family man. “From his marriage until the end of
his life,” Macleod notes, “every major decision he made about his career
revolved around their interests” (xiv). Steele often clashed with peers and his
political superiors, and blamed them when he failed to
achieve his ambitions.
Despite
the rich source material available in the Steele Collection, Macleod laments in
the first chapter that not much is known about Steele’s early life. He was born
on January 5, 1848, near Orillia in Simcoe County, Canada West, to parents Elmes Steele and Ann MacIan
Macdonald, who was forty-eight years her husband’s junior. After his mother’s
death in 1859, he lived with his half-brother John. Steele joined the militia
in 1866 at age sixteen. During the Red River Resistance, he volunteered to join
the Wolseley Expedition and marched to Manitoba in 1870. After returning to
Ontario, Steele became dissatisfied with the possibilities of advancement in
the militia and joined the North-West Mounted Police at its founding in 1873.
Steele
marched west with the NWMP during the summer of 1874. Between 1875 and 1885, he
was stationed at Swan River, Fort Macleod, Qu’Appelle, Calgary, and Golden,
rising to the rank of inspector. During the 1885 North-West Rebellion, Steele
formed Steele’s Scouts, one of only two groups of the mounted police to take an
active part in the rebellion. Steele was rewarded with a promotion to
superintendent and was given command of the police detachment at Battleford.
There he entered a low point in his career. He considered leaving the force and
may have developed a drinking problem. Steele was transferred to Fort Macleod
in 1888, where one of the most significant events in his life took place. He
met “the love of his life,” Marie Harwood (113). The couple were soon engaged
and married in Montreal in early 1890. The Steeles spent the next eight years
at Fort Macleod, where three children were born, and Steele made a series of
unsuccessful mining investments.
As
the Klondike gold rush was picking up steam in early 1898, Steele was ordered
to the Yukon. He left Vancouver for Skagway in late January, where he remained
until the end of March, making observations on the supposed violence there.
Steele spent the next five months at Lake Bennett, supervising the rush of
miners heading over the Chilkoot and White passes. In
September 1898, Steele took command of the police detachment at Dawson City,
where he cleaned up many of the administrative problems plaguing the
government. Marie considered joining Sam in the Yukon, but eventually decided
to move the family to Montreal until Sam’s return in October 1899. By that
time, Steele had fallen out of favour with Wilfrid
Laurier’s government and began looking for opportunities outside of the NWMP.
The
start of the South African War offered an opportunity to return to the militia.
Steele arranged to be appointed commander of Lord Strathcona’s Horse. Under
Steele’s command, the Strathconas arrived in Cape
Town in March 1900 and fought the Boers for most of the next year. Following a
brief return to Canada, Steele was back in South Africa in 1901 to lead “B”
Division of the South African Constabulary. Marie and the children joined him a
year later, and he remained with the force until late 1906. Steele returned to
the Canadian militia in 1907, where he served in command positions at Calgary
and Winnipeg. At the start of the First World War, Steele was promoted to major
general and given command of the British Army’s Eastern District. He spent the
rest of the war supervising the training of Canadian soldiers in England and
lobbying for a promotion to a senior command position. Steele became Sir Sam
Steele on January 1, 1918, and reluctantly retired from the army early that
year. He died of complications from diabetes in London on January 30, 1919.
Macleod’s
focus on Steele and his personal experiences is effectively used to paint a
thorough and detailed picture of the man. Throughout the book, Macleod provides
succinct, informative background sections on the North-West Rebellion, the
Klondike gold rush, the origins of the Boer War, and other topics that will be
valuable to the general reader. He often provides discussions of Steele’s
relationships with well-known figures he encountered, such as Colonel Garnet
Wolseley, NWMP Commissioner L.W. Herchmer, and
Minister of Militia Sam Hughes. Unfortunately, Steele’s relationship with those
under him often lacks personal details, likely due to source availability.
Macleod often puts Steele at the centre of every
event he participated in, as is most clear in the Klondike gold rush chapter.
It is common for historians to put Steele at the centre
of the Klondike story, but a wider analysis of the NWMP role in the gold rush
would show that Steele was more of a minor figure than presented here.
Early on in the book, Macleod
addresses the challenge of adequately including the perspectives of Indigenous
people in the biography of a colonial figure. He notes in the first chapter
that Steele’s family settled on land in Simcoe County that had been part of the
Lake Simcoe–Lake Huron Purchase of 1815. Macleod makes clear that the NWMP was
created to foster the settlement of Western Canada, an end that was
“universally regarded” as requiring “the dispossession of the Indigenous
peoples” of the region (30). But those looking for a critical analysis of the
role of Steele and the NWMP in the colonization of Indigenous Peoples will be
disappointed. Macleod doesn’t avoid the topic, but the narrative is largely
uncritical, focusing on Steele’s personal experiences and leaving the reader to
ponder more difficult questions.
Macleod
deserves recognition for sifting through the vast Steele Collection and often
difficult-to-read handwritten letters, as this author knows from personal
experience. The result is a thorough, if sometimes uncritical, biography of
Steele —the person and his experiences—that will be approachable to general
readers and valuable to scholars examining the events Steele participated in.
Notes
1.
Sir Samuel Steele
Collection, University
of Alberta Libraries Bruce Peel Special Collections,
https://discoverarchives.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/sir-samuel-steele-collection#ref3
Scott Dumonceaux
is a Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North Postdoctoral
Fellow with the School for the Study of Canada at Trent University. He has a
PhD in history from the University of Calgary.