Surf City’s own Mountie

A LOOK BACK

How many of you remember watching Nelson Eddy singing on the

silver screen romantically to Jeanette MacDonald in the movie musical

“Rose Marie.”

In the movie, MacDonald goes in search of her brother in the

Canadian wilderness and meets up with a handsome Canadian Mountie

played by Eddy. She sees him dressed up in his colorful uniform and

by the end of the movie falls for the guy.

When you were a kid in the 1940s maybe you listened to the radio

in your living room to the adventures of Sgt. Preston and his wonder

dog Yukon King each week as they brought back their man in the days

of the gold rush in the Yukon Territory.

What the movie and radio program had in common was Hollywood’s

idea of what a Canadian Mountie was like.

Being a Mountie, or should I say Royal Northwest Mounted

Policeman, was nothing like what Hollywood portrayed on screen. This

week we are going up to the frozen north and learn about the real

life adventures of a Mountie -- Alexander Macdougall “A.M.” Gladwin.

Gladwin was not born in the country north of us in 1880, but in

the wild western town of Tennessee Pass, near Leadville, in Colorado.

His parents were Canadian, and in 1884 the family moved to Nova

Scotia to live. It was here young Gladwin received his early

education. In 1901 a 21-year-old Gladwin joined the Royal Northwest

Mounted Police and was assigned to the Yukon Territory of Canada.

It was cold, it was vast and it was lonely for the young Gladwin.

But in 1903 Gladwin made a name for himself by helping catch two

murderers.

It seems three local trappers had cashed in their furs and met up

with two other men. The five of them built a large boat to paddle

down to the town of Dawson in. While the five men paddled their boat

down stream, they were spotted by a Mountie and a notation was made

in the Mounties’s diary.

Another Mountie spotted the boat and noted that there were only

two men aboard heading for Dawson and wrote that in his diary.

When the three fur trappers didn’t arrive in Dawson their

relatives contacted the local police headquarters.

Gladwin was assigned to the case and after a little detective work

comparing the notations in the two diaries, stepped in and the

Mounties got their men.

He was so proud of his solving the case that he sent his parents a

photo of himself in uniform with one foot resting on a bench made of

moose antlers.

While Gladwin was crossing a frozen river with his horse, the ice

broke off. Gladwin lost his horse but was able to get ashore safely.

Another time he almost lost his life when he was lying on the ice in

the middle of a river channel to get a drink when the ice broke and

he fell into the ice-cold water. Luckily he was not alone.

Several fellow Mounties were there that day and were able to grab

his feet and pull him to safety. They took him to an old stable

house, got a fire going and were able to keep Gladwin warm and to dry

his uniform.

Gladwin’s main transportation in those days was river boats of the

White Pass Steamship Company. But as in the movies, he also traveled

by dogsled. To a Mountie, the dogs were friends and trusted

companions.

Another time Gladwin and his team of dogs were forced to sleep by

the banks of the Yukon River. Lying on a heavy robe in 30-below

weather and with the dogs snuggled around him, Gladwin was able to

stay warm, and he the dogs protected each other from the wolves.

By 1906 Gladwin had had enough of this kind of life and he was

able to buy his discharge from the Mounties.

He then tried his luck at mining for gold and running a hotel, but

without success.

In 1918 Gladwin returned to the United States. He served in the

Army during World War I.

Warm weather is what brought Gladwin to California. In 1933 he

went to Catalina Island and lived there for 10 years. During World

War II, Gladwin moved to Balboa on the mainland before finally

landing in Huntington Beach in the late 1950s, where he spent his

retirement years at 123 1/2 6th Street.

I wonder if he ever sat in the movie theater watching Nelson Eddy

in that Mountie uniform and thinking to himself that this guy

wouldn’t last a week up there in the real Yukon.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington

Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at

P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.