The North-West Mounted Police under Superintendent Sam Steele ruled Gold Rush Dawson with an iron hand. Determined it would not become another Skagway, the police enforced laws to the hilt and even invented a few.
Side arms were forbidden in Dawson, and no one could carry a revolver without a licence. So many revolvers were confiscated in 1898 that the police auctioned them off as souvenirs for as little as a dollar. Perhaps partly because of this strict rule, there was not a single murder in Dawson in 1898.
However, other crime abounded. More charges were laid per capita in the Yukon than in any other part of Canada. The chief crimes were dog-stealing, fraud, disturbing the peace, non-payment of wages, operating unsanitary premises, and using vile language. One man was even threatened with deportation for speaking disrespectfully of Queen Victoria. Of the more serious arrests, over half involved prostitution.
The police had a novel, and illegal, method of dealing with offenders; they issued a "blue ticket" requiring the offender to leave town. Alternatively, the sentence might be hard labour on the government woodpile, working 10-hour days sawing wood into stove length. When one American gambler sneered at his 50-dollar fine, saying he had it in his vest pocket, Steele replied, "And sixty days on the woodpile. Have you got that in your vest pocket?"
