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 In 1911, as part of a system of patronage, Canada¶s prime minister1 assigned Dr. Charles A.
Wilson to the Northwest Mounted Police detachment at Fort McPherson near the Mackenzie Delta.
The assignment surely pleased the senator2 who had pushed the doctor¶s cause, but instead of being
thankful, the latter showed anger²the work he sought was in the South, not at this "desolate post."
He would go, but needed a thousand dollars to "pay obligations" and buy supplies. "Wire funds,"
said his telegraphed note, "must not be an absconder, answer immediately."
Arrived at McPherson, Wilson soon showed the breath of his skills in caring for a native
matron with burns to the trunk. Large skin grafts ³took beautifully,´ though her corpulence made it
"a difficult case to dress." Despite delirium, fever, and kidney complications, she recovered.
By constrast, the doctor had nothing to offer a Gwich¶in woman with advanced
tuberculosis.3 Deformed by spinal tuberculosis, or Pott's disease, she had not sought help till an
abscess had formed, and swollen glands in the groin were chronically draining. Autopsy revealed a
track of pus downward from the necrotic spine via muscles and other soft tissues. Amyloidosis, a
deposit of complex sugars due to chronic infection, was present in major organs.
That first year, Wilson developed close ties with Anglican missionary Charles Whittaker,
who had long served the area as amateur physician. While the doctor visited Herschel Island, the
minister cared for Louisa's burns. That initial good will, however, soon changed to ridicule from
all in the region.
Wilson was obsessed with money. Since his contract only referred to care of police, he
resented seeing Indians. Of the former just a few were usually on site, but of the latter many sought
help. Injuries were common, willows scratched eyes on the trail, and wet weather brought
rheumatic pains, colds, and sore throats.
When Wilson learned that police doctors in the Yukon received fifty dollars a month from
the Department of Indian Affairs for looking after natives, he wanted the same. In less than half a
year, he complained, he had seen 293 natives, done 349 initial consultations, made 321 follow-up
visits, dispensed drugs 574 times, and performed 37 minor surgical procedures. The appeal
worked. By April 1912, Wilson, too, was on the DIA payroll.
Money, however, stayed a problem, for Wilson had left a trail of debt. When a former
former lady acquaintance in England tried to recover what he owed her and appealed to the police¶s
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top brass, the letter was sent on to Fort McPherson. Northern ties, too, turned ugly as the doctor
hoarded funds. Given his standing as a surgeon, policemen did Wilson's cooking and cleaned his
room, and a native employee4 each morning brought hot water. The doctor resented paying for that,
and instead of giving him three dollars a month, did so only yearly.
Another source of conflict was the surplus of detachment supplies, which reverted to staff
and was sold for furs or cash. Sure he was being cheated, Wilson laid a charge against the sergeant.
When the regional commanding officer responded by stopping sales, neither the doctor nor the
police could earn extra money. The ruling was accompanied by the official¶s lasting enmity toward
the doctor.
Wilson's isolation was worsened by dislike of travel. During a trip to Herschel Island he
complained of conditions, though his misery had less to do with weather or terrain than with his
prickly ways. Constantly sullen, he was considered a ³wet-blanket.´ His righteous tone, moreover,
did not match his acts, for at Fort McPherson he often slept with an Indian woman, Louisa
Teedeehook, who became pregnant in early 1914. Questioned at length by the sergeant, the doctor
³strenuously´ denied a link.
Of the locals who taunted the father-to-be, none took more pleasure than Joseph Jacquot, an
independent trader who journeyed widely. A few years before he had moved in with a young Indian
woman, and though not legally married she was known as Sarah Jacquot. In early 1914, soon after
her husband returned from a bout of excess across the mountains in Dawson, he infected her with
venereal disease. Angered, she moved out.
Several plots converged at this point. Jacquot, suspecting that Sergeant Clay had sent his
wife liquor, blankets and other goods, became convinced he was her lover and had ordered her to
leave him. Confronting his rival he got into a scuffle, was jailed, and charged with assault. Then he
was handed a harsh sentence (two months¶ confinement with heavy labour) by the doctor, who
acted as judge. As Jacquot saw it, Wilson was getting even for the ribbing over Louisa¶s child.
Tied to a makeshift ball-and-chain (a log and thirty pounds of birdshot), Jacquot slept by the
stove in a makeshift cell "no larger than a coffin", and went outside no further than the woodpile.
Then, agreeing before an inspector that his sentence had been just, and promising to behave, he was
let go early. The docility, however, was faked, for he planned stiff revenge. While in jail he and
Wilson had realized that by working together they could shame the detachment and ruin the
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officers¶ careers. Leaving at once for Yukon, he wrote from there to the police commissioner in
Regina and told of the injustice applied to his case.
Wilson too, left the North. As soon as Louisa¶ s pregnancy became known, he had asked for
transfer to Alberta. "I have or will have had when the summer boat arrives," said his letter, "three
years at this post, and it is about all I can stand." Senior officials, aware by now of his disruptive
ways, sent his political sponsor a note and chose not to engage the doctor again.
Wilson, unaware of these arrangements, became more bitter the further he came south. At
police headquarters in Northern Alberta he made damning accusations while painting his own role
as one of uniform good. When he first arrived in the North, the police "were held in contempt by
the whole of the population.´ His actions had improved much of that, but issues remained.
Inspector Phillips lacked the men's confidence, and Sergeant Clay, chronically depressed, was not
suited to a distant post.
In Wilson¶s version of events, Clay had contracted gonorrhea from Jacquot¶s wife and to
avoid reinfection had made her stay away from her husband. The latter had attacked the sergeant
and been admitted to prison, where harsh treatment fluctuated in tandem with pain in the sergeant¶s
hugely swollen testicles.
The story had less effect than the doctor had hoped. The commissioneri cautiously fumed
that if officers had indeed "betrayed the trust´ imposed in them, they should resign. Yet he put
scant credence in the ³sweeping accusations,´ for the sergeant had a fine reputation.
In Macpherson, Wilson¶s charges drew the small white populace together. Jacquot's Quebec
background (which likely meant he was Catholic) and frequent drunkenness had brought him no
friends in the staunchly Anglican settlement. His unmarried life with a native woman had offended
the missionary, and his work as an independent trader had made him an enemy of the Hudson's Bay
clerk. Public knowledge of his venereal illness, imported from elsewhere and transmitted to his
wife, had led to loathing. Wilson¶s tattling at police headquarters had made matters worse.
Whites denied all wrong-doing by the sergeant and in sworn depositions before Inspector
Philips told how Wilson had evoked ill feeling the entire time he had been with them. The minister5
"strongly rejected´ Wilson¶s claims. It was the doctor, not the police, who lacked people's
confidence. Indians had often complained of his "contempt and harshness" when they sought

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treatment, and bewailed that he had "grossly neglected many needy and deserving cases." Another
cleric6 labelled the doctor¶s charges preposterous and spiteful.
A former a member of the police spoke of Wilson¶s aggression and brooding. The man was
"held in more contempt by the population´ than anyone he could think of. The Hudson's Bay
trader7 backed that up. The sergeant¶s qualities were entirely opposite to those reported by Wilson.
Rather than sullen and incompetent, he was "very pleasant, most genial, and the most efficient
officer´ ever in charge at McPherson. Wilson, by contrast, was "the only man who made himself
absolutely obnoxious´ to others at the detachment and to the rest of the population.
A Hudson's Bay Company inspector seconded those sentiments. If Clay had ever been
unpleasant to Wilson, he would merely have been "repaying him in kind." It was absurd for the
doctor to say that he had rescued the police reputation, for no one recalled an act on the doctor¶s
part that served that purpose. If there was question of lack of respect, it applied only to the doctor,
whose activities "both socially and professionally," had earned him disdain from Indians, Inuit, and
whites alike.
The sergeant¶s defenders insisted that Jacquot's arrest had been warranted and his sentence
correct. Ball and chain had been worn no more than two days, and after his discharge he had not
been stopped from seeing his wife. The woman¶s many visits to the barracks during Jacquot¶s
incarceration had nothing to do with Sergeant Clay, but related to the needs of a female prisoner
also held at the time. Even had Clay wanted to take advantage of Sarah while her husband was
confined, it would have been impossible, as he was far away on patrol.
Other policemen confirmed the sergeant¶s alibi, as did Sara herself. On returning from
Dawson her husband had asked for her help, for he "was going to make trouble for the police." He
had urged her to support his charges against Clay, but she refused. She had received no goods from
the sergeant, she told the enquiry, nor was there need, as she had "grub and blankets of my own."
The police, she affirmed, had "always treated me good," so there was no cause for complaint.
Jacquot was not there to counter Sara¶s story. A month after he told her of his plan to harm
the sergeant's career, he came to an unexpected end. Traveling on the Mackenzie in early October,
as Sergeant Clay reported, he "accidentally drowned," That same day, Archdeacon Whittaker took
Sarah aside for a "long talk." Accepting his admonitions, she claimed "to be repentant for her

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misdoings." Her story about the sergeant and Jacquot was apparently not quite as black and white
as she and McPherson¶s whites painted it in their depositions.
To some, Jacquot¶s drowning may have seemed strange, especially since he was an
experienced traveler, water levels at that time of year were low, and streams ran less quickly. His
canoe and all its contents were recovered intact, as was his hat, but the body was never found.
Rumour suggested that drinking or suicide might have played a role. Other theories received no
attention.

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Louisa Teedeehook gave birth in November and at the baptism, conducted by Whittaker,
affirmed the child "belongs to Dr. Wilson." The infant, however, did not stop her from being
courted by others. Within days she received a summons from Pete Peterson, a white trader who
lived in the Mackenzie Delta near the arctic shore. On Nov. 25 she left to become his wife, and
from time to time thereafter the two of them paid Whittaker a visit.
Sara Jacquot married a certain Herbert, a Gwich¶in, eight months after her husband's death.
Sergeant Clay, by then on furlough in the south, found the love of his life and, three years
after his alleged tryst with Sara Jacquot, brought her to McPherson. "One of the finest women who
ever lived," according to some northerners, Margaret Clay became the "general favourite" of whites
along the Mackenzie. She and her husband never had children, suggesting that the illness Clay had
suffered in 1914 was not a venereal one, but mumps. Indeed, that explains the sergeant's swollen
testicles far better than gonorrhea.
Deeply in love, Mrs. Clay insisted on living with her husband at each posting, even when he
thought it too dangerous. In 1924, his last year in the North, she accompanied him to Chesterfield
Inlet and there, while the sergeant was away on patrol, a pack of sled dogs attacked her and
inflicted mortal wounds. Clay, unaware of her death, returned two weeks later.

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Dr. Philip Ernest Doyle, recent McGill graduate and newly appointed police surgeon,
arrived at McPherson in 1916, and in the subsequent year the Rev. Whittaker often saw him at the
bedside of ailing Indians. The doctor traveled widely and spent much time in the Mackenzie Delta
and on the coast. At Herschel Island (where no medical man had visited since Wilson's brief
sojourn in December 1911) he found people in a ³very sick´ state. Tuberculosis, syphilis, and eye
infections were common, and children suffered many sores on scalp and face. So he stayed as long
as he could.
In time, the doctor¶s devotion faded. He liked alcohol and sex with native women, and by
1924, he showed symptoms of the late cerebral stage of syphilis. "Seriously affected in his mind,
suffering from frightful illusions," he thought himself responsible for spreading "a horrible
disease." Unable to ship him out until the arrival of the steamer, whites at Aklavik wearied of his
ranting and reached the point where they wanted to "put him down through a hole in the ice´ or
shoot him.

 

That summer saw a start on the Oblate Fathers¶ construction of a combined residential
school, orphanage, and medical ward, and that spurred the Anglican church to put up a small
hospital the following year. It also made the police less willing to lay out the costs for a year-round
physician.
Police surgeons spent most of their time caring for native peoples, yet government
departments responsible for Indians and Inuit covered but a fraction of their salaries. As soon as
Doyle left Herschel Island, it was decided that other arrangements hade to be made.
It was not that the police disagreed with having a doctor fill multiple functions, for in the
South at many sites they gave part-time work to medical men engaged in other employ²the
position was known as Acting Assistant Surgeon. But some of those, as well, took in too high an
annual sum for the little police work they did.
At Fort Smith south of Great Slave Lake, for example, the police paid Dr. Macdonald, an
Indian Department physician, a significant amount. That was no longer justifiable, as care of police
took up but an "infinitesimal" part of his time. Even a ³small salary´ would reward him well.
O. S. Finnie, senior federal bureaucrat for the North West Territories, did not answer such
concerns, as he doubted RCMP threats to withdraw their physician from the Arctic Coast. He
correctly anticipated that a physician would be sent in to replace Doyle, and that the the new doctor
would be stationed at Aklavik along with the police detachment when it moved south from
Herschel Island to that location. If so, Finnie was prepared to assist only to the extent of creating a
part-time Medical Health Officer position.
 -

The RCMP replaced Doyle with Acting Assistant Surgeon Ward, who initially received
$750 from the Dept. of Indian Affairs and $1750 from the the RCMP. By 1928, however, the
latter¶s officials again grumbled that the police took little of the doctor's time, and let it be known
the arrangement had become " disappointing and expensive."
Between 1924 and 1927 policemen had sought the doctor¶s medical help only twice, while
he spent much of his time looking after natives in the Aklavik structures put up by the churches.
Elsewhere in the Delta and at Herschel Island, Inuit took much of his attention. It was time that
Finnie, responsible for these people, hire his own physician.
In an arrangement similar to that at Fort Smith and other southern posts, the RCMP paid ³a
small fee´ of $600 per year for the care of its men. As well, it let the new doctor take over Dr.
Ward's quarters, and give him free passage on its boats along the coast. Indian Affairs also
contributed, but since it was no longer responsible for Inuit, and few Indians visited the Delta, the
stipend was halved to $300. The rest was covered by Finnie through the federal department in
charge of the North.

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Livingston, the next doctor to practice at Aklavik (now almost entirely on a non-police
salary) brought a wife, had children, built a farm (cows and all) and behaved very well²though
worries about his skills, especially in surgery, gradually mounted. The concern was well-founded,
for he had never completed medical-school. But that is another of the North¶s surprising medical
stories, and one that requires an article of its own.
 + 

Wilfred Laurier, aboard the "Virginian," to Col. Fred White, Comptroller, R.N.W.M.P., 12
May, 1911. RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254. Compt. to W.C. Edwards, the Senate, 31 March, 1914.
RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254. C.A. Wilson, telegram from Edmonton to Hon. Wm. C. Edwards,
Sussex St, Ottawa, 18 May. (Wilson lived near Hortonburg, Saskatchewan). RG 18 vol. 463 file
252-254. For police response to Wilson's demands, see Perry to A.R. Cuthbert, Supt. RNWMP,
Edmonton, July 12, 1911. RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254. Comptroller Fred White to Asst.
Commissioner Z.T. Wood, RNWMP, Regina, July 11, 1911. RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254. White
to Wilson, July 11, 1911. RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254.
McPJ15, p.94.
Wilson, Medical Report to Officer Commanding N Division, Jan 21, 1912. NAC RG 18,
vol. 425, file 258.
Wilson to Officer Commanding "N" Division, 16 Feb 1912, NAC RG 18, vol. 463, file
252-254. McPJ15, 4 and 9 Dec. 1911 and 1 Jan 1912.
Wilson to Officer Commanding "N" Division, 16 Feb 1912, NAC RG 18, vol. 463, file 252-
254. Supt. N Division to Commissioner, Regina, 6 April, 1912, NAC RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254.
L.D. McLean, Assistant Deputy, D.I.A. to Fred White, May 14, 1912, NAC RG 18 vol. 463 file
252-254. The D.I.A.'s practice of paying RNWMP for the care of Indians and Eskimos in the
North West Territories began in 1908, when it awarded Dr. O. Lacroix, at Churchill, $250.00 for
his care of numerous consumptive patients. He was to supply his own medicines and surgical
needs. NAC RG18 vol 357 file 256.
Mrs. Alice Blair Willcocks, Brighton, Sussex, England to Comptroller, RNWMP, Feb. 27,
1913. Comptroller to Willcocks, March 11, 1913. Both RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254. The letter
was forwarded to the Commissioner in Regina for further action. Phillips to Perry Feb. 10, 1915.
RG 18, vol. 486, file 282.
J.W. Phillips to Sergt. Clay, Fort Macpherson, July 13, 1913. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282.
Arthur N. Blake, "an ex-member of the force" and McPherson resident, sworn statement
before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 8 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282. Insp. J.W. Phillips to Perry. 6
Feb, 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282.
 Wilson to Comptroller, Feb. 14, 1914. RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254. Compt. to W.C.
Edwards, the Senate, 31 March, 1914. RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254. Commissioner Perry to
White, 30 Mar. 1914. RG 18 vol. 463 file 252-254.
Joseph Jacquot to Commissioner Perry, August 20, 1914.
Joseph Jacquot to Commissioner Perry, RNWM Police, Regina, Aug. 22, 1914. Although
he had lived around McPherson since 1902, Jacquot had fled the hostile police for Dawson, whence
he wrote this missive. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282.
Joseph Jacquot to Commissioner Perry, NWMP, Regina, Aug. 22, 1914. RG 18, vol. 486,
file 282. A.E.C. McDonell, Supt., Commanding "N" Division, RNWMP Athabasca, Sept. 8, 1914
to Commissioner Perry. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282. Wilson to John Firth, from Fort MacMurray,
July 10, 1914. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282.
A.E.C. McDonell, Supt., Commanding "N" Division, RNWMP Athabasca, Sept. 8, 1914
to Commissioner Perry. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282. A. Ross Cuthbert, Asst. Commissioner, to Perry,
19 Nov. 1914. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282.
Perry to Officer Commanding, RNWMP, Athabasca, Sept. 11, 1914. RG 18, vol. 486, file
282. Perry to Laurence Fortescue, Comptroller, RNWMP, Ottawa, Sept. 29, 1914. RG 18, vol.
486, file 282. Perry to the Comptroller, RNW Mounted Police, Ottawa, Nov. 20, 1914. RG 18,
vol. 486, file 282.
C.E. Whittaker, Archdeacon of Mackenzie River, sworn statement before Insp. J.W.
Phillips, 8 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282. G. Eldon Merritt, sworn statement before Insp.
J.W. Phillips, 8 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282. Merritt was then a lay missionary with the
Anglican Church.
Arthur N. Blake, "an ex-member of the force" and McPherson resident, sworn statement
before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 8 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282. John Firth, sworn statement
before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 8 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file 282. Firth had been in charge of the
Hudson's Bay Company store for thirty-two years.
W.G. Phillips, sworn statement before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 8 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486,
file 282. Phillips was in charge of the Mackenzie district of the Hudson's Bay company.
S.G. Clay, sworn statement before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 6 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file
282.
 F.H. Long, sworn statement before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 6 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file
282. W.A. Doak, sworn statement before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 6 Feb. 1915. RG 18, vol. 486, file
282. Sarah Jacquot, sworn statement before Insp. J.W. Phillips, 6 Feb. 1915, signed with "her X."
RG 18, vol. 486, file 282.
McPJ15: 8 Oct. 1914.
McPh15: 22-25 Nov. 1914. The first stage of Louisa's trip was to the house of Kenneth,
one of the Anglican catechists, where she awaited Reverend Girling. The latter, newly arrived in
the North that summer, planned to conduct the Peterson wedding. See, for example, MacPh. Jrnl.
17 June 1916 [check date] "Peter Petersen and Louisa up, later left for Red River."
Godsell, Jean W, I Was No Lady...I Followed the Call of the Wild: The Autobiography of a
Fur Trader's Wife (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1959), p. 60-62. Deeply in love, Mrs. Clay insisted on
living with her husband at each posting, even when he thought it too dangerous. In 1924, his last
year in the North, she accompanied him to Chesterfield Inlet. While the sergeant was away, a pack
of sled dogs attacked her, inflicting mortal wounds. Clay, unaware of the tragedy, came home from
his patrol two weeks later.
Fry to Lucas 10 Dec. 1916. AAT, M75-1, box 3, Lucas Papers, file: Fry. "The Dr. from
McPherson arrived at the Island a week before we did and when we saw him he told us that he had
his hands full. This is the first time in years that a medical Dr. has been here, except one visit of
about two weeks by Dr. Wilson four [it was actually five] years ago. Dr. Doyle found the people in
a very sick condition and on this account stayed with us as long as he could not leaving for
MacPherson until two weeks after Mr. W. had already gone. Some of the people died during his
stay with us. The Dr. diagnosed their diseases as -- pneumonia, diphtheria, meningitis, etc. Almost
all the children were suffering with sores on their heads, faces and necks. Others are troubled with
bronchitis and some of that loathsome disease hereditary syphilis. One poor woman eight months
pregnant died of burns aggravated by premature parturition. Another pregnant woman is laid low
with tuberculosis and being extremely weak is rarely out of bed. Yet another little lad is covered
from head to foot with boils. Then, also, quite recently there is a new epidemic of sore eyes when
the flesh around the eyes becomes inflamed and raw. Do our friends know that we receive no
medical supplies either from the government or from our mission except that we can pay for
ourselves? When the doctor left us we tried to carry on his work but he could not spare us any of
his small store of medicines for this purpose. We have depended entirely upon the medical and
surgical supplies which we brought with us, and which we were able to purchase with the monies
given us by the Woman's Auxiliary of Toronto and Friends of Brantford."
"My wife is a great help to me in the work, a good wife, and a true missionary. There are
some things only a woman can do. When our people need help she realizes their need long before I
do and has been of great service where I should have failed utterly. The doctor discovered this
before I left and now the Police Inspector brings many of the cases which come before him to her."
O.S. Finnie to W.W. Cory, 23 Sept. 1924, RG 85 vol. 593, file 735, 1921-27.
Memorandum to O.S. Finnie, signature illegible, 18 Feb. 1928, RG85 vol. 781, file 5878.
By another fulltime police surgeon, a Dr. Scott.
Finnie to Cory, Sept. 23, 1924. NAC RG85, V593, F735.
Cortland Starnes to Director, NWTYB, 13 Feb 1928, RG85 vol. 781, file 5878.
Memorandum to O.S. Finnie, signature illegible, 18 Feb. 1928, RG85 vol. 781, file 5878.
Finnie to Cory, 21 Feb. 1928, RG85 vol. 781, file 5878.
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