Scarlet Riders: Pulp Fiction Tales of the Mounties

Geoff Cragg is a tenured instructor in the Faculty of General Studies at
the University of Calgary.

Scarlet Riders is an anthology of Mountie tales found in various pulp
magazines from 1933 to 1957. Though stories about the Mounties were
popular, no single magazine was devoted to these tales. Essentially a
subgenre of the Western tale of adventure, they share many of the
central elements: the lone heroic figure of the Mountie, usually alone
in the wilderness, menaced by but always overpowering the forces of evil
(often Indians or Métis) and usually rescuing a virtuous and fairly
helpless maiden along the way.

Though a hint of romance is frequent, it is seldom allowed to bloom,
unless the author is tired of his Mountie and is seeking a graceful way
to retire him from the pages. Action is usually frenetic, and violence
with guns is de rigueur; considerable and striking bloodshed is
required. Many of the stories in this collection show features of
fantasy and escapism: for example, turning up in many stories is the
Silver Corporal, a wizened but almost superhuman figure (how he was
transformed from a Wyoming cowhand into a Mountie in the frozen North is
never explained). In fairness, it should be noted that the brevity of
the short story or novella almost requires the author to employ generic
and formulaic writing. And these were not authors striving for literary
notice—they were engaged in the tough business of making a living by
writing popular fiction of all kinds.

In his introduction, Hutchison refers nostalgically to the era of pulp
magazines as one in which the reader was free to indulge the imagination
free of the baleful influence of the mass media. But the stories he’s
chosen proceed from the time when radio (and, later, television) had
captured the interest of the average Canadian. Rather than placing the
pulp magazines in opposition to the mass media, it might be more
reasonable to regard these tales as reinforcing what Pierre Berton
described as the “Americanization of Our National Image” (especially
by Hollywood). Nonetheless, Hutchison is to be congratulated for
rescuing texts that would otherwise escape the notice of most scholars
and enthusiasts of popular culture.