The March West was the initial journey of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) to the Canadian prairies, made between July 8 and October 9, 1874.
It was the result of the force being deployed to what is now southern Alberta in response to the Cypress Hills Massacre and subsequent fears of a US military intervention. Their ill-planned and arduous journey of nearly became known as the "March West" and was later portrayed by the force as an epic journey of endurance.
Background
Sir John A. Macdonald acquired approval for his new force on May 23, 1873, after Parliament, following a cursory debate, passed the Mounted Police Act into law unopposed. At this point, Macdonald appears to have intended to create a force of mounted police to watch "the frontier from Manitoba to the foot of the Rocky Mountains", probably with its headquarters in Winnipeg. He was heavily influenced by the model of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which combined aspects of a traditional military unit with the judicial functions of the magistrates' courts, and believed that the new force should be able to provide a local system of government in otherwise ungoverned areas. Macdonald had originally also wanted to form units of Métis policemen, commanded by white Canadian officers in a similar manner to the British Indian Army, but he was forced to abandon this approach after the Red River Rebellion of 1870 called their loyalty into question.
In June 1873, around 30 Assiniboines were killed in the Cypress Hills Massacre, creating a national furore. In response, Macdonald used a privy council Order-in-Council to implement the new legislation, formally creating the NWMP with the intention of mobilizing the force and deploying it early the next year. A report then arrived from Alexander Morris, the Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories, blaming the massacre on the activities of whisky traders at Fort Whoop-Up; Morris predicted that if action was not taken immediately, there would be a major uprising by the First Nations across the region, into which the United States might choose to intervene. Macdonald was not entirely convinced by the governor's analysis, but nonetheless he agreed to recruit 150 men and send them west to Lower Fort Garry before winter weather blocked the route.
Macdonald's Conservative government then fell from power over the Pacific Scandal and was replaced on November 7, 1873, by the Liberal administration of Alexander Mackenzie, who placed more credence on Morris's reports and had his own moral concerns about the whisky trade. These worries were amplified by calls from Washington for Ottawa to secure the frontier and so prevent American Indians from purchasing whisky in Canada. Mackenzie initially suggested sending a joint Canadian-United States military expedition, but, after Governor General Lord Dufferin and others noted the serious implications of inviting the US Army to deploy into Canadian territory, he instead agreed to deploy the new mounted police to carry out the operation. Another 150 men were recruited in eastern Canada and sent west by railway and river boat through the United States to rendezvous with the first part of the force at Fort Dufferin.
Deployment
The force was given orders to proceed to Fort Edmonton in order to resolve problems around Fort Whoop-Up, before then dispersing to various posts stretching westwards across the territories. From Fort Dufferin, one option was to trace the southern line of the frontier, following a well-established trail created two years before by the British and United States Boundary Commission. Morris disagreed with this approach, arguing that it might encourage an attack by the Sioux, and encouraged the NWMP to take a more northerly route. French finally agreed with Morris that the expedition would initially follow the trail, but would then steer away from the border and Sioux territory.