Burnaby Now August 4 2017

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RCMP MUSICAL RIDE COMES TO SWANGARD STADIUM

How Chris Windover rode into history As the RCMP musical ride prepares to gallop into Swangard Stadium for the second time in Burnaby’s history on Aug. 18, the NOW looks into a link between the ride and the city’s first female RCMP officer. Cornelia Naylor

cnaylor@burnabynow.com

When ChrisWindover, née Mackie, started her police training at the RCMP Training Academy in Regina, Sask. in 1975, she wasn’t given a gun belt to holster her pistol, bullets and handcuffs – she was given a purse. “It was a black purse,” she says with a laugh during a phone interview from Ontario. “It was a purse you carried over your shoulder, and we were issued a shorter gun.” By the time she left Depot, among only the second female troop in RCMP history, the powers that be had changed their minds, and the police purse and lady gun were scrapped. WhenWindover and troop mate Donna MacMillan arrived in Burnaby to become the detachment’s first female members in 1975, though, their working uniform still included a skirt, a pillbox hat, a triangular necktie that looked more like a bib, and black pumps with a one-and-a-half-inch heel. “We called them wicked-witch-of-thewest shoes,”Windover says, “and we wore them while the men wore ankle boots.” After about six months,Windover says she just went ahead and brought her own pair of flat, black oxfords. “They didn’t know how to dress us.They didn’t know what do to with us,” she says. Windover’s expectation that she’d be doing the same job as her male counterparts when she got to Burnaby wasn’t always shared by the men in charge or the men she worked with. She remembers one dispatcher who sent her only to mundane calls and other colleagues telling her to “keep an eye on the women” when she was sent to more inter-

RIDE FREE: Christine Windover, née Mackie, one of the first two women to ride in the RCMP musical ride, pictured here riding her steed Hazel in 1981, was also one of the first two female RCMP members to serve in Burnaby. PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

esting incidents. and having my troopmate Donna. I was re“It was very new,”Windover says of wom- ally blessed.” en in the force in the 1970s. “Some peoWindover served at the Burnaby detachple were horribly against it. … There were a ment for five years before going on to anothlot of people hoping that you er RCMP first. won’t be able to do it, but I In 1981, she and Joan They didn’t had some wonderful support Merk became the first fetoo from others, so it was very know what to do male Mounties to ride in the individual.There was some RCMP musical ride. with us wonderful guys there.” As such,Windover and One such guy was Bruce Merk were also the first feHamilton, the trainer she male Mounties to shed the worked with for six months afpillbox hat, pumps and skirt ter arriving in Burnaby. of the women’s review order uniform and “He was the greatest guy,”Windover says. don the traditional Stetson, breeches and “Not sure I would have made it without him high boots of the red serge.

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It would take another nine years before the rest of the women in the RCMP were allowed to wear them. Most Mounties who join the musical ride have no previous riding experience,Windover says, but she had ridden all her life and applied because of her love of horses. The glamour of the ride didn’t hurt either. “You wear the red serge and ride nice big black horses and everybody likes you, as opposed to being on the road in a police cruiser where nobody likes you,” she says with a laugh. Continued on page 4

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