From 1864 until 1871 a relatively secret organisation of Canadian police patrolled Canada’s border with the United States. What began as a mission to prevent increasing tension between Britian and the US evolved into a concerted effort to undermine a major threat to Canadian sovereignty. This threat came from the Irish Republican organization known as the Fenians. Through a complex array of informants and spies on both sides of the border the Canadian secret police (known as the Frontier Constabulary) played a central role in defining Canada’s response to the Fenian threat and became the country’s first ever secret police organisation. 

Book recommendation: Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries and the Secret Police by David A. Wilson published by McGill-Queens Press in 2022.

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