Mounted Police

Constable Tyrone Potts riding Chancy, Ottawa, 1993 Photograph by Morgan Baillargeon, CMC K93-2772

Aboriginal people acted as scouts and interpreters for the army, surveyors and police forces in Canada and the United States. During World War I, many served their country overseas in cavalry regiments. Today, only a select few qualify for the mounted police units. In the early to mid-1990s, two Plains Aboriginal constables, Dennis Fraser (a Métis from Shell Lake, Saskatchewan) and Tyrone Potts (an Apatohsi Piikunii from Brocket, Alberta) performed with the elite Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride stationed in Ottawa, Ontario.

Constable Bill Willmon, Mixed-blood, of the Sacramento Police Force Mounted Unit, 1994 Photograph by Morgan Baillargeon, CMC 94-1143

Constable Mike Hash, Mixed-blood, is with the Sacramento Police Force Mounted Unit. In 1993, he and four other Mixed-blood colleagues took a five-week equitation course at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Equitation Centre in Ottawa. Photograph by Morgan Baillargeon, CMC 94-1146

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