Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 24/99) - Though never a member of the celebrated Mountie musical ride, Yellowknifer and retired RCMP sergeant Lorne Schollar will soon be making a historical ride.

Schollar will join a contingent of active, former and retired mounties from across Canada for Rendezvous '99 this summer to mark two landmark anniversaries -- the bicentennial of Rocky Mountain House trading post and the 125th anniversary of the arrival in Alberta of the Northwest Mounted Police, the RCMP's forerunner.

"I really enjoy horses, and it'll be a great chance to catch up with three or four guys that I've worked with over the years," said Schollar.

Originally from Saskatchewan, Schollar served in both Yukon and the NWT, and chose to remain in Yellowknife after retiring from the force some 16 years ago. He said that though he never patrolled on horses, four-legged transport was occasionally necessary in the Yukon to reach otherwise-inaccessible caches of ageing dynamite. Schollar said he also used horses while hunting for dall sheep, a cousin of the bighorn.

But the four-day Rendezvous '99 ride is all about relaxing, meeting old friends and national pride. The horsemen will leave Fort Normandeau, near Red Deer, and arrive at Rocky Mountain House's National Historic Site on Canada Day, July 1. Sponsors Hudson's Bay History Foundation will make sure the riders look the part: decking them out in uniforms with a western flair -- scarlet jean jackets, brown jeans and straw hats.

For the ride, Schollar said his daughter, Geraldine, will lend him the use of Rooster, a strawberry roan that he described as, "a mature horse, and fairly sturdy to stand this type of thing."

As for Schollar, though tall and straight as a rod, he said he will need some practice to stand this type of thing.

But, like his daughter, who works on a ranch near Red Deer, Schollar knows his horses. In fact, he said that when Geraldine got married in the summer of '97, the family organized an all-equestrian wedding.

Wearing his RCMP scarlet, Schollar said he led his daughter, and her horse, to the outdoor altar at Pioneer Lodge, where the horseman groom was waiting. And that's not all, Schollar said. Who should be the ringbearer at such pastoral nuptials but another four-legged friend, Indy. A Yellowknife-raised border collie with smarts, an easy-going disposition, Indy wore the rings in a bandanna tied around her neck.

"My daughter was a little concerned the dog might run off with the rings because Indy was raised up here without horses," said Schollar, "but she pulled it off."

No doubt, Indy understood horses were in the family, too.