Travel-RCMP TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Travel bug photos are appreciated.  I will re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

I am always watching for something to convert to a travel.  I bought this item at a filling station in Pincher Creek, Alberta, the location of our B & B when we traveled around the region in 2015.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are colloquially known as the Mounties, but internally they refer to themselves as “the Force.”  Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald first began planning a permanent force to patrol the North-West Territories after the Dominion of Canada purchased the territory from the Hudson's Bay Company.   Reports from Army officers surveying the territory led to the recommendation that a mounted force of between 100 to 150 riflemen could maintain law and order.  The Prime Minister first announced the force as the North West Mounted Rifles. However, officials in the United States raised concerns that an armed force along the border was a prelude to a military build-up.  Macdonald then renamed the force the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) when formed in 1873.  The mission was later expanded to police other provinces and territories of Canada.

As a kid in the late 40s, I could not have cared less about this history.  What I did care about was the after school radio program “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.”  I was an avid listener to the adventures of the Mountie Preston and his faithful Husky dog, “King.”  Moreover, my favorite breakfast cereal was Quaker Puffed Wheat, the sponsor of the program.  Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice were “shot from guns,” so said the announcer during commercials.