Sperry Cline
Encyclopedia
Distinguished Conduct Medal
The Distinguished Conduct Medal was an extremely high level award for bravery. It was a second level military decoration awarded to other ranks of the British Army and formerly also to non-commissioned personnel of other Commonwealth countries.The medal was instituted in 1854, during the Crimean...
was a frontier policeman and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
in British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Early life
Cline was born near St. ThomasSt. Thomas, Ontario
St. Thomas is a city in southern , Ontario, Canada. It is the seat for Elgin County and gained its city charter on March 4, 1881.-History:...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
in the early 1880s. In his teens, he traveled to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and joined the British South Africa Company
British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes through the amalgamation of the Central Search Association and the Exploring Company Ltd., receiving a royal charter in 1889...
's cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
. He rode with the Matabele Field Force for the defence of Bulawayo
Bulawayo
Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe after the capital Harare, with an estimated population in 2010 of 2,000,000. It is located in Matabeleland, 439 km southwest of Harare, and is now treated as a separate provincial area from Matabeleland...
and then stayed in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, where he later fought in the Boer War
Boer War
The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat and the Republiek van Transvaal ....
, earning a Distinguished Conduct Medal
Distinguished Conduct Medal
The Distinguished Conduct Medal was an extremely high level award for bravery. It was a second level military decoration awarded to other ranks of the British Army and formerly also to non-commissioned personnel of other Commonwealth countries.The medal was instituted in 1854, during the Crimean...
.
Hazelton
After recovering from malariaMalaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, Cline returned to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and moved to Hazelton, British Columbia
Hazelton, British Columbia
Hazelton is a small town located at the junction of the Bulkley and Skeena Rivers in northern British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1866 and has a population of 293...
in the winter of 1904. In Hazelton he tried his hand at many jobs, beginning with mail delivery in the form of mushing
Mushing
Mushing is a general term for a sport or transport method powered by dogs, and includes carting, pulka, scootering, sled dog racing, skijoring, freighting, and weight pulling. More specifically, it implies the use of one or more dogs to pull a sled on snow or a rig on dry land...
the huskies down the frozen Skeena River
Skeena River
The Skeena River is the second longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada . The Skeena is an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan - whose names mean "inside the Skeena River" and "people of the Skeena River" respectively, and also during the...
to the coast and back again. He freighted supplies by canoe, worked as a pilot on a sailing sloop
Sloop
A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....
and was a foreman at the Silver Standard mine. In 1914, he finally found his niche. On the day of the second robbery at the Union Bank in New Hazelton, Cline was asked by Hazelton's Chief Constable, Ernie Gammon, to join the posse
Posse comitatus (common law)
Posse comitatus or sheriff's posse is the common-law or statute law authority of a county sheriff or other law officer to conscript any able-bodied males to assist him in keeping the peace or to pursue and arrest a felon, similar to the concept of the "hue and cry"...
that would capture three of the four surviving bandits. Shortly thereafter, Cline joined the police force at Hazelton and would be a policeman in British Columbia for the next thirty-two years. He acquired the nickname "Dutch" because of his tendency to pepper his English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
with a liberal smattering of Cape Dutch
Cape Dutch
Cape Dutch are people of the Western Cape of South Africa who descended primarily from Dutch and Flemish as well as smaller numbers of French, German and other European immigrants along with a percentage of their Asian and African slaves, who, from the 17th century into the 19th century, remained...
, Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
and Chinook
Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon originated as a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest, and spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and as far as Alaska, sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language...
, often all in the same sentence.
While Cline lived in Hazelton he became acquainted with the mule-packer Cataline
Cataline
Cataline was the nickname given to Jean Caux or Jean-Jacques Caux, the most famous mule packer of the Canadian West.-Biography:In different biographies Cataline has been recorded as being born in Mexico, Spain and France...
and the two men would often engage in long conversations. To a casual eavesdropper, these conversations would have sounded quite strange indeed: like Cline, Cataline also spoke in several different languages at once. In Cataline's case, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and one of his own invention. Nevertheless, the two men understood each other perfectly.
As a frontier policeman, Cline often found himself in the role of prosecuting attorney as well as arresting officer. It was through these court battles that he became acquainted with the criminal defense lawyer, Stuart Hendersen. In 1919, Cline contacted Hendersen to represent Simon Gunanoot
Simon Gunanoot
Simon Gunanoot was a prosperous Gitxsan man and a merchant in the Kispiox Valley region of Hazelton, British Columbia, Canada. He lived with his wife and children on a large ranch...
. The case received national press attention and was one of the most talked about trials of that era. Gunanoot was found not guilty.
Throughout his years on the Hazelton police force, he became known as a man of common sense and integrity, often willing to apply practical solutions to a situation, rather than always going "by the book". He had a wheelbarrow in which he would haul the patrons of the local hotels who had imbided too freely off to the Skookum House, (jail). Cline jokingly referred to his wheelbarrow as the "Hazelton Patrol Wagon". His earlier experience with mushing sled dogs would come in handy on many occasions, once he took a dog team 170 out of town to an isolated cabin along the Yukon Telegraph Line, to investigate the disappearance of a lineman who, as it turned out, had frozen to death.
When Cline left Hazelton in the 20's, he moved onto the police force in Smithers
Smithers, British Columbia
Smithers is a town located in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, approximately halfway between Prince George and Prince Rupert. Smithers is located in the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako....
and then on to the Chemainus police force, from where he was transferred to the Police Training School in Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
.
Author
Cline retired from the British Columbia Provincial PoliceBritish Columbia Provincial Police
The British Columbia Provincial Police was the policing body for the Canadian province of British Columbia until 1950. The force is usually dated from the appointment of Chartres Brew in 1858 with the formation of the Colony of British Columbia and associated appointments...
in 1946 and went on to write a series of articles about his adventures in Hazelton, which he entitled Policing the Skeena.http://ilmbwww.gov.bc.ca/bcgn-bin/bcg10?name=54472
Many of these stories would be featured in the magazine BC Outdoors and some would go on to be published in Art Down's Pioneer Days in British Columbia series.
Then with pioneer sternwheeler historian, Wiggs O'Neill, Cline co-authored, Along the Totem Trail: Port Essington to Hazelton.http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=456
Cline died in Burnaby on May 8, 1964.