Sam Steele

Major General Sir Samuel Benfield Steele KCMG CB MVO (5 January 1849 – 30 January 1919) was a distinguished Canadian soldier and police official. He was an officer of the North-West Mounted Police, most famously as head of the Yukon detachment during the Klondike Gold Rush, and commanding officer of Strathcona's Horse during the Boer War.

Born into a military family at Medonte Township, Upper Canada (now Ontario), he was the son of Royal Navy Captain The Hon. Elmes Yelverton Steele, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, and one of six brothers to have served in the British Armed Forces. His mother (the second wife of his father), Anne Macdonald, was the youngest daughter of Neil Maclain MacDonald of Ardnamurchan, a native of Islay. Neil MacDonald was a grandson of Captain Godfrey MacNeil of Barra, and a nephew of Colonel Donald MacNeil. Sam Steele was named for his father's uncle, Colonel Samuel Steele, who served in Quebec under Lord Amherst. Sam Steele received his education at the family home, Purbrook, and then at the Royal Military College of Canada. By the age of thirteen he was orphaned, and went to live with his elder half-brother, John Steele.

Following his family's military tradition, in 1866 Steele joined the military during the Fenian raids. Steele also participated in the Red River Expedition in 1870 to fight the Red River Rebellion of Louis Riel. Much to his disappointment, he arrived after the Métis had surrendered. The following year he joined the Permanent Force artillery, Canada's first regular army unit. Steele had long been fascinated by the West, devouring the works of James Fenimore Cooper in his youth. He was especially interested in the First Nations, and spent his time in the West learning from them and the Métis. However, he was assigned to Fort Henry in Kingston, Ontario, for the next few years, as an instructor at the Artillery School. In 1874, Steele was initiated as a Freemason in the Lisgar Lodge No. 2, in Selkirk, Manitoba.

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