Andrew Raven
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (Sep 16/05) - The year was 1932 and 34-year-old RCMP corporal John Halliday was loading gear into a police motor boat in preparation for a voyage up the Mackenzie River.

But Halliday made an ultimately fatal mistake on that mid-October day. When he grabbed his rifle the muzzle was pointing towards his body. The gun discharged, sending a bullet into his chest. The 13-year veteran died within minutes.

Halliday became what police believe today is the only member of the Fort Simpson detachment to lose his life while on duty.

More than 70 years after his death, Fort Simpson police found a fitting tribute last week for the officer who spent the last five years of his career policing the remote North: they christened their jet-boat the John Halliday.

"We were looking for an appropriate name and agreed that his was the best," said Const. Jack Keefe.

"We wanted to pay tribute to an officer who lost his life in the line of duty."

Halliday was born in the township of Trafalgar, Ont., in 1898 and joined the RCMP in 1919, when he was 21 years old.

During the early days of his career, he served in what were then the relatively remote and rugged western provinces, making stops in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia and Alberta. He was posted to the Northwest Territories in 1927 and made stops in Rae and Fort Smith before coming to Fort Simpson, according to police archives.

He became famous within law-enforcement circles after catching a poacher using some textbook sleuthing. Halliday matched a torn page left at a poaching-cabin with a magazine discovered in the tent of a trapper - evidence that eventually led to the poacher's conviction.

After his death in 1932, the RCMP sent word to his wife and family in Oakville, Ont. Keefe said police did not receive a response and so Halliday was buried in Fort Simpson. His grave - a simple stone marker surrounded by a white fence with the RCMP emblem - is still maintained by the detachment today.

"It is an interesting story," said Keefe, who researched Halliday's career with help from the RCMP archives.

"I wish I knew more about him."