The Rocky Mountain Rangers

When Native and Métis unrest escalated into the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, white settlers in southern Alberta`s cattle country were terrified. Three major First Nations bordered their range, and war seemed certain. In anticipation, 114 men mustered to form the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia charged with ensuring the safety of the open range between the Rocky Mountains and the Cypress Hills. The Rangers were a motley crew, from ex-Mounties and ex-cons to retired, high-ranking military officials and working ranch hands. Membership qualifications were scant: ability to ride a horse, knowledge of the prairies, and preparedness to die. The Rangers were resolutely prepared to fight, as mounted cavalry, should the rebellion spread. This is their story, inextricably linked to the dissensions of the day, rife with skirmishes, corruption, jealousies, rumour, innuendo and gross media sensationalizing . . . all bound together with what author Gordon Tolton terms "a generous helping of gunpowder."

Saddle up, little partner. You're on patrol with the Rocky Mountain Rangers! It's our job to protect Canada's precious mountain parks. We wrangle grizzly bears, rescue stranded hikers, and ride up and down the trails with our horses - it's all in a day's work for a ranger.

Having been born and raised on the Missouri River at Atchison, Kansas, and having the ghosts of the Civil War about me constantly, I have been passionately interested in the Civil War as long as I can remember. The Victorian and antebellum homes with servant quarters still behind them, the wooded bluffs and caves where escaped slaves were hidden, and the mystique of the Missouri River area itself have maintained this feeling of the war for me. My mothers immediate family was from the Missouri River bottoms on the Missouri side and my fathers immediate family was from rural Atchison on the Kansas side. From my incomplete and somewhat misinformed family and formal history education, I assumed for most of my life that my mothers family was Confederate in its leanings and that my fathers family was Union. I was unaware that the town and countys namesake, Sen. David Rice Atchison, was from Missouri and had much Pro-Slavery activity. No effort has ever been made to change the towns name since the war. No Confederate tie to him was taught in any of my classes in school.