Bruce Peel Special Collections

Please note: This collection, formerly located at Bruce Peel Special Collections, was relocated to University of Alberta Archives in 2024.

This extensive archive, 1870–1978, documents the life and career of Samuel Benfield Steele, noted North West Mounted Police officer and military leader who participated in many of the seminal events and campaigns of the Canadian West and the Yukon. The Steele family papers were acquired from British descendants of the family in 2008 and repatriated to Canada in a special ceremony held at Canada House in London, England, where H.R.H. the Earl of Wessex made a ceremonial presentation to Chancellor (2004–2008) Eric Newell, thereby entrusting the Steele Collection to the University of Alberta Library. The archive treats Steele’s storied career and documents the lives of his wife and children. While the arrangement and description of the fonds is incomplete, a portion of it has been digitized to provide broader access. The Steele Collection fills more than 140 archival boxes containing correspondence, manuscript memoirs, diaries, journals, notebooks, photographs, and published material. The archive is useful for researchers interested in police history, the Klondike Gold Rush, the Boer War of 1899–1902, Canada’s role in WWI, as well as family and social history. For more information, link to the Steele Collection website or finding aid. Related publications include:

• The Frontiersman's Pocket-Book, a training and survival manual first published by the Legion in 1909 and republished by Bruce Peel Special Collections in 2012. This limited edition facsimile is available in person in the Peel library for $40 (cash only, no dealers) or through University of Alberta Press or Indigo.
• Sam Steele's Forty Years in Canada: History or Fiction? a 2017 digital exhibition curated by Alison Rukavina.
• Sam Steele: A Biography (2018) by Rod Macleod—the paperback is available from University of Alberta Press and a limited edition hardcover is available only in person in the Peel libary for $75 (cash only). Check out the CBC's review: "Feminist and Family Man: Book Shines New Light on Legendary Mountie Sam Steele" (13 Jan 2019).

Collection Formats: 19th Century, 20th Century, Correspondence, Ephemera, Manuscripts, Photographs -- click to see other collections with this format