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Place: Unusually, the letter is undated and does not include the location of the writer, but the envelope is postmarked Regina

From: T.A. Patrick

To: Mrs. T.A. Patrick, Yorkton

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked April 6 and April 7

Details: 1 pp on North West Territories lined letterhead, watermarked, & an envelope

Notes: In a short letter to his wife, Marion, T.A. Patrick expresses his pleasure that his daughter Edith is taking her medicine without complaint. He writes "I enjoyed witnessing the opening of the Manitoba Legislation. Gillis and I had seats on the floor of the House."

Place: Regina [N.W.T.]

From: T.A. Patrick

To: Mrs. T.A. Patrick, Yorkton, N.W.T.

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 4 pp; paper watermarked with crown, crest, and “Antique Parchment Note Paper;” & an envelope

Notes: T.A. Patrick writes to his wife that he is pleased that George [his brother] has sold eight cattle. Patrick thinks that they can afford to keep the rest of the cattle. He asks his wife to apply the money "on notes coming due at the bank." The Brome Grass seed, which Patrick mentioned in his last letter, was profitable for both Patrick and George. This money is to go towards payments on accounts around town.

He writes that he "got the registered letter. It's another homestead affair. I sent it back to Grenfell [to Mr. Fitzgerald from the business letter] for corrections. When it reaches you deal with it as with the others."

He then writes that he has enclosed the key to his drawer within his brother Dick's safe. He asks his wife to "get the certificate of title for block 18 Yorkton. I wish to get the survey or town plot registered. Don't forget this."

Patrick mentions going to Moose Jaw on Saturday to visit friends and that his son George's picture "has many admirers." He asks if the mill is going up and how the girls are getting on in school. He asks if they are forgetting their German.

Place: Regina [N.W.T.]

From: T.A. Patrick

To: Mrs. T.A. Patrick, Yorkton, N.W.T.

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 3 pp on paper watermarked with crown, crest, and “Antique Parchment Note Paper;” & an envelope

Notes: T.A. writes one of his frequent letters to his wife that he has work "to do today as chairman of the "Cooked Accounts" Committee reporting the refusal of Mr. Bennett to attend the Committee when requested to attend and give evidence" and Patrick writes of moving for an order to compel Mr. Bennett's attendance.

He then mentions letters from his mother and sister, Maud, and meeting with the new boiler inspector. He states that "the estimates were brought down yesterday Yorkton District fares fairly well - about $3500 altogether." He continues that "this will do quite a little to improve our roads and bridges." Additionally, he states that he has sent 14 letters to the district "advising people as to the grants for particular works."

Patrick finishes his letter writing "I think my letter to Mr. Magee [from the last letter] settled a good deal of his chatter. I wonder if Mrs. Magee will come to see you [Patrick's wife] again."

Place: Regina [N.W.T.]

From: T.A. Patrick

To: Mrs. T.A. Patrick, Yorkton, N.W.T.

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 3 pp on paper watermarked with crown, crest, and “Antique Parchment Note Paper;” & an envelope

Notes: T.A. Patrick writes one of his frequent letters to his wife, Marion. He writes that the Budget Debate is on and that Bennett and Sifton spoke the day before. He writes that he thinks "it likely the apposition will move an amendment in which case [Patrick] may speak to both motion and amendment."

He indicates that Marion will have seen Patrick's edition of The Standard. He states that "at my suggestion the Queen's Printer who appeared before the Committee on Public Accounts was to write me who printed these accounts saying that he would be afforded an opportunity by the Committee to explain the cause of an error. Therein the Queen's Printer instead wrote him a letter requiring him to furnish an explanation. Well he got mad. He was also angry about the motion respecting the Select Committee."

Patrick finishes his letter stating that "he [Mr. Bennett] appeared before the Public Accounts Committee yesterday and I examined him."

Place: Regina, [N.W.T.]

From: T.A. Patrick

To: Mrs. T.A. Patrick, Yorkton, Assa.

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 1pp on lined North West Territories letterhead, watermarked “Old Hampden;” and an envelope

Notes: T.A. Patrick writes a short letter to his wife, Marion. He writes that "Mr. Meredith arrive last night and leaves this afternoon. We had a hot dinner yesterday and more hot weather in the House is promised. Mr. Meredith came up to the House with me but seems to have gone again. He promised to go with me to Government House to call on the Governor."

Place: Regina [N.W.T.]

From: T.A. Patrick

To: Mrs. Marion G. Patrick, Yorkton, Assa.

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 1pp on lined North West Territories letterhead, and envelope

Notes: T.A. Patrick writes to his wife, Marion, that he had "a very effective speech" yesterday "on the amendment to the motion to go into supply." Bennett also made an effective speech. However, Patrick writes that "the result in the House of course was not effective whatever effect it may have in this country." He tells his wife that "the Standard publishes my Autonomy Speech in full this session, also I believe the Caribou."

Patrick finishes his letter "wondering how things are in Yorkton." He writes that "papa will soon be back."

Place: Collingwood, Ont[ario]

From: Alf [T.A. Patrick]

To: Mrs. Marion G. Patrick, Byron, Middlesex Co., Ont.

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 1pp on lined Grand Central Hotel, Collingwood Ont. letterhead. The envelope is printed with “Great Northern Exhibition, Collingwood, Ont. – September 22, 23, 24, 25, 1903.” in red ink.

Notes: T.A. Patrick writes one of his frequent letters to his wife while in Ontario. He writes that he "arrived at Collingwood last night to find that owing to a smash-up or a break-down or a break-up or a smash-down the boat I decided to sail on has been taken off the route and there is none until Tuesday so I leave at noon for Meaford then by stage to Owen Sound where I hope to catch a C.P.R. boat leaving there tonight at 5:30."

Place: Fort William, Ont[ario]

From: T.A. Patrick

To: Wife, [Marion G. Patrick]

Details: 1pp typewritten on “J.J. Wells, Clerk of the Third Division Court. Notary Public. Real Estate and Insurance.” Letterhead. Paper is watermarked with a Victoria Cross-style icon and the words “Standard, Pure Linen.”

Notes: T.A. Patrick sends his wife a typewritten letter to inform her that he has arrived in Fort William and has been visiting John Wells and Ida Momtague Bloomfield. He writes that "Mrs. Bloomfield lives near and neither of them are far from the C. N. R. station where we entered Fort William. Perhaps you remember walking past an office which stood along and which had a sign "Men Wanted.""

Place: Regina [N.W.T.]

From: Alf [T.A. Patrick]

To: Mrs. Marion G. Patrick, Byron, Lucan, Middlesex Co., Ont[ario]

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 4 pp on Alexandra Hotel, Regina, N.W.T. letterhead. Envelope is printed with “Return to The Alexandra Hotel, F. Nash, Proprietor, Regina N.W.T.” in black ink.

Notes: T.A. Patrick writes a letter to his wife, Marion, while she is away in Ontario. He writes, "it is Sunday morning, again, and we have for the first time in, about, a month a completely overcast sky. Last night there was a slight flurry of snow but only a flurry. The weather is warm and the ground not yet frozen up. I do not recollect seeing the freeze-up delayed so late in the season before. I had instructions sent to Mr. Goodacre to dig the ditch to lower the level of the lake three feet, and I am wondering what progress has been made. Mr. Thomson surveyed and laid out the ditch. It is to be about a mile long and about nine feet deep for a short distance just where it comes out of the lake. I am anxious to get it well started this fell whether completed or not."

He informs his wife that he intends to go back to Yorkton to hold "a service of meetings all over the electoral district of Yorkton (not Mackenzie district) to explain the municipal ordinance, and generally the work of the session. This will mean a lot of travelling and will take two or three weeks." He mentions this now "because it may affect [Marion's] home coming," but if she desired "to prolong [her] visit it will be much less lonesome for [Patrick] if [he is] away through the country on political business than if [he was] at home." He states, "I have not visited my constituency since my election and have no yet seen the new town of Sheho."

Patricks thinks that he will go to Edmonton to visit his brother Emerson and to see Edmonton, Strathcona, and Wetaskiwin since his old pupil John Brown lives there. Patrick then updates his wife that his bronchitis is improving but that the "hotel life is wearying." However, he sees his brother, Jack, everyday. He writes about Jack, "if the benches of the Law Society meet at Brandon this month he may go there as acting Secretary of the Law Society with some prospect of being chosen permanent Secretary were Mackenzie resigned. The position is wroth $400 a year at least, and would exalt him very much in his profession but he is somewhat handicapped by the fact that Yorkton is somewhat remote and not directly connected by rail and mail routes with the rest of the Territories. However, next year will remedy this condition, and it may not ban him." Patrick continues that "Jack has ordered his library from the Canada Law Book Co. of Toronto. It will be more extensive than that of any other Yorkton lawyer. They give him all the time he wants to pay for it."

Patrick then changes the subject of his letter, explaining that "hotels all over the Territories are overcrowded, and many can not get beds. All signs point to an extraordinarily heavy immigration," with 6000 Mennonites going just north and west of Beau and Burch.

He then asks what is wrong with their friends Maude and Thompson, inquiring about the wedding, and discussing Mrs. Merriam's [Maude's mother's] reluctance to see her daughter marry. Patrick states that "nineteen years old is hardly old enough" but, then, jokes, "tell Leslie that if he had only decided to marry a Doukhobor or a Galician or Hungarian there would have been no delay."

Typed header reads: “Extracts from reports of Officers of the N.W. Mounted Police for 1888 on the subject of the liquor laws. / 1888. / Commissioner L.W. Herchmer.” Officers include the Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner and Superintendents Cotton, McIllree, Neale, Deane, Steele, Perry, Griesbach, and Antrobus.

Commissioner Herchmer:
“There is a feeling, however, among the farmers, and naturally, that the sale of good beer should be allowed, and that it should be brewed in the country out of the home-grown barley, the present regulations allowing a wretched apology for beer to be brewed in the country out of grape sugar and other poisons, while the brewing from home-grown malt of an article of equal intoxicating power is strictly prohibited.”
“… I unhesitatingly affirm that under the permit system and the North-West Act, as then interpreted by our judges, there was less intoxication among the whites, according to population; and there can be no comparison between the quantity of liquor then supplied to Indians and the quantities they have obtained since that portion of the Province was, as certain people call it, emancipated.”
“In the days when the Act was first introduced there were no lawyers in the Territories and appeals were almost unheard of . . . Since the advent of lawyers everything has changed.”
“A saloon keeper of any experience keeps about enough liquor on his premises to fill his permits, and whenever ‘pulled’ by the Police he produces his permits, or those of his friends, and keeps his reserve stock of contraband liquor in hay stacks and manure heaps, closets and other hiding places of the same sort”
“The profits of the trade being enormous our men are all the time subject to the temptation of, to them, immense bribes, to pass a cargo, and who can wonder, under such conditions, that they sometimes fall.”
“I think it would be advisable to permit the establishment of breweries of sufficient capacity to support an Inland Revenue officer, as small concerns without much at stake are liable to be tempted to evade the law, particularly as regards Indians.”p.2
“In Calgary I may safely say we have captured more liquor consigned to two druggists than to any two saloon keepers in that town.”p.2

Assistant Commissioner:

“The liquor law is not working at all satisfactorily, and is no doubt being evaded, and would be, even if there were five times as many police as there are. The law is unpopular. This accounts for the great difficulty we experience in connection with it. It is almost impossible, under the existing state of the law, to get a conviction.” p.2

Superintendent Neale:

“Nearly all classes of the community in this district are antagonistic to the existing liquor laws, and there are very few indeed who will not assist in the smuggling of liquor.” p.4

Superintendent Steele

“The reason for passing the Act was to prevent the sale of intoxicants to Indians, and for that purpose answered very well, . . . . no serious trouble has been caused since from the drunkenness of the Indians; but when the same law is applied to the whites it is quite another thing.” p.5
“Under the system of smuggling, which prevails, the dealer brings in pure alcohol, and by the admixture of pernicious drugs and water makes it into an article resembling whiskey in color but most dangerous in its effects.” p.5

Two page typed memo written by an unnamed Comptroller. Dated in Ottawa, 31st January, 1890.

“Until recent years a permit was understood to cover liquor imported into the North-West for the use of the person named therein, but it has been ruled in Court that both the permit and the liquor may be held in the possession of a person other than he to whom the permit was issued.
Under the protection of this ruling, saloons are supplied freely with permits and liquor, and it is quite a common occurrence for the Police to find in the same house liquor covered by permits in the names of half a dozen or more different persons.
Liquor is smuggled into the country to replenish the kegs or jars protected by the permits, and it is impossible to prove that the liquor found in such kegs or jars is not that which was originally imported into the country under permits_ a permit may thus be used as a perpetual license unless a case of selling can be established.
If the permit system is to be continued, the undersigned suggests that the law should be amended in such manner as will forbid the transfer of permits and restrict the custody and use of liquor imported there-under to the residence and household of the person to whom the permit is issued.”

Typewritten, “1888: Whiskey informers & detectives: Newspaper articles re. Extract from the Medicien (sic) Hat ‘Times’ of Sept 10, 1887. THE INFORMER: Considerable consternation was imminent in the city Monday over the rumour that a whiskey informer was at large.”

Pencil notation, “1889 – no. 401: Liquor question N.W.T. General Memorandum.”

Dealer believes this is a Letter to the Editor written by Commissioner L.W. Herchmer.

A typewritten copy of an extract from the Regina Journal newspaper dated February 16, 1888. The extracted article deals with how the Mounted Police conducted a recent liquor search. Mr. F. Arnold, proprietor of Lansdowne Hotel, accuses four NWMP officers of entering his wife’s bedroom while she was still in bed during their search of his hotel. He does not give names of officers.

“The Northwest Prohibition Farce” newspaper clipping from the Calgary Tribune and dated July 18, 1888.
An editorial piece protesting the exemption granted the Canadian Pacific Railway from the permit-based liquor laws of the time.
“In another column will be found the announcement that permission has been granted to the Canadian Pacific Railway hotel in Banff to import and sell wine and beer as a beverage, and the Mounted Police authorities have received instructions not to interfere with them in the carrying on of that business. . . . The Government at Ottawa (by whom the Lieutenant-Governor of these Territories has unquestionably been authorized in this case) seem to be under the impression that the people of this country are a lot of serfs and nincompoops who have no conception of the rights of freemen . . . ”

The first newspaper clipping headline reads: “Maximum Fine in Reid Case / Pleaded Guilty of Illegal Liquor Selling and Was Fined $500 / Moose Baxter Case was Adjourned / Accused Claimed That He Was Not Proprietor of Turkish Baths”

Bert Reid, proprietor of the Cafeteria, pled guilty before Superintendent Deane of the Royal North West Mounted Police to selling liquor illegally with the understanding that the additional barrel of beer and wine discovered outside did belong to his brother, John, who had the liquor on hand for a planned housewarming party. This version of events was contested by Stanley Jones of the Moral Reform league.

A preliminary to the trial of Moose Baxter was held following the Reid case. Moose Baxter claimed that he was managing the Turkish bath house which the police raided, but that it was his brother Hector Baxter who actually owned the business. The rest of the article is not included.

The second newspaper clipping headline reads: “Sleuth Grimsdall Hadn’t Authority to make Arrests”

Detective Grimsdall arrested “Moose” Baxter in two assault cases, but both cases were dismissed by Col. Walker who said that in neither case did Grimsdall have the authority to arrest Baxter in the Barracks court.

The daily journal kept by Douglas Musgrave Rourke, first husband of Louise Rourke and an accountant working at the Fort Chipweyan Hudson's Bay Company Fur Trading post, from January 1, 1926 to January 7, 1927. The journal accounts each days events, including weather, business conditions, the arrivals and departures of government agents, HBC traders, RCMP, Indigenous peoples, and other visitors.

The journal is preceded by a page of comments by Louise Rourke and a carbon typescript of a short biography of Louise Rourke. The journal also contains three additional pages included as memoranda, with detailed notes.