RICHARD ALLEN SCOTT - Through the Years

RICHARD ALLEN SCOTT
THROUGH THE YEARS
(having floated down from way up north normally). Pulling them with any force would quite often
separate flesh from bone….not a pretty sight. Also, they were usually swollen and gross. They
could explode. We got the coroner to attend the scenes, stick a huge needle in them to deflate
them (the smell was absolutely putrid) and then put them in a metal box.
During the hot summer months when forest fires were a potential or real problem, we used to
arrest hitch-hikers who had no admitted purpose in life other than to travel and live off of food
and accommodation vouchers they knew they could obtain from police offices wherever they
went. We solved that dilemma for them by ensuring they had good meals and quarters as they
were ‘press-ganged’ into the employment of the Forestry department and sent to hot spots as
required.
Being at the confluence of the only 2 highways out to the ‘rest of Canada’, we saw just about
every size, make and model of criminal possible coming through our area. Made for very
interesting searches, seizures, arrests, and iinformation-gathering.
That year, our RCMP Commissioner had the bright idea that all members would look nice in
long boots and spurs, breeches, and a stetson. How absolutely bloody impractical. Try getting
out of a car in a hurry without getting your spurs tangled. And in the rain, your stetson just sags
and is hard to get back into shape. No rain covers in those days.
Here I am so dressed in front of the old
Hope Detachment (since demolished) with
a couple of Mum’s friends from England (I
still don’t know who they are!). My
moustache has sprouted.
The same Commissioner later gave us the
horrid purple police cars.
June 2017
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