St.Albert Law Enforcement

ST. ALBERT IS consistently ranked one of the safest cities in Alberta, and this is thanks in no small part to the efforts of the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police. While the RCMP have served the citizens of St. Albert for a long time, they weren’t the first police force in the town. St. Albert has a long history of law enforcement, ranging from early frontier justice to citizens’ militias.

The North West Mounted Police, 1876-1896

St. Albert’s first real law-keepers were the North West Mounted Police, a national police force created by John A. Macdonald who sent these officers to the Canadian Prairies in 1874 to keep the peace on the new frontier. While these officers technically held jurisdiction in St. Albert, it’s unlikely that they ever came to the fledgling settlement during this time, as most of them were busy chasing whiskey smugglers and cattle thieves in the south,

FUN FACTEarly policemen in St. Albert were truly doing a public service. Officer Ernest Seymour is reported to have had a wage of $40 per month in 1905. Adjusted for inflation, that brings it to just under $900 today.

St. Albert Police Force 1896-1944

While the North West Mounted Police provided a valuable service to the early settlers of St. Albert, their resources were stretched thin across almost all Western Canada. it wasn’t long until the town decided to form its own police force, one that would be under control of the town instead of answering to the federal government. This St. Albert police force was first formed in 1896, and in the early days, it only had one or two officers active at a time.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police

By 1944, it was becoming far too expensive to sustain a police force in the growing town of St. Albert. The town council dissolved the police force and invited the

While they originally operated out of the former St. Albert Police headquarters, the RCMP soon moved to a modern police station on Muir Drive, complete with holding cells. They stayed at this location until 1976, when they moved to a sleek new building in Grandin, the same building that houses the Hemmingway Centre today. In 2001, they moved to the current-day station that sits on the corner of Boudreau Road and Bellerose Drive.