Fortifying the Frontier?

By Heather Burke, Ray Kerkhove, Lynley A. Wallis, Cathy Keys and Bryce Barker ‘In the hut we built we made square holes in the corners & sides, and had pieces of wood hung by pieces of green hide and a hide latch[?] we could just open the little door and fire away if necessary.’ James […]

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“My unfortunate habit of ‘nipping’”*: Alcohol and the Native Mounted Police

By Bryce Barker The historical record tells us that alcohol consumption in the early days of European ‘settlement’ was prodigious (Dingle 1978, 1980; see Figure 1). Indeed, the most common artefact we have recovered during excavations at Native Mounted Police (NMP) camps is glass, by far the most common type of which comes from alcohol […]

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