As the first female graduate of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Carol Briggs helped blaze a trail during an “exciting and scary” time in her life.
Fifty years ago, Troop 17 — which included Briggs and 31 others — took the oath to become RCMP officers, the first females allowed into the force.
Briggs, 75, said looking back, training at the RCMP’s Regina academy in 1974 was “exciting and scary.” She called meeting other women from across Canada a highlight.
“We got to be friends. Everyone kind of supported each other,” Briggs said while sitting beside her wife, Gale M’Lot, and two dogs in their Winnipeg home recently. “As a group of women, we were kind of bonding and able to help each other. Someone with strengths in one area could help someone else who wasn’t so good at something.”
Briggs was between jobs when a friend suggested she apply for the RCMP. She took an abridged course on airport policing and became a special constable posted at the Winnipeg International Airport.
The women received a lot of media coverage, Briggs said, including a January 1975 front page Free Press photo of her shortly after she started working in the airport. She received congratulatory letters from people across the country that she still flips through occasionally.
At the time, the RCMP didn’t have uniforms tailored for women and instead gave them men’s clothing that didn’t fit properly, Briggs recalled with a laugh. The women were also given purses to carry their pistols in instead of the standard Sam Browne holsters given to men.
Briggs said she’s proud of the women in her troop and proud of herself for making it through the application process and training — which included swimming, driving, shooting at the gun range, physical training and typing.
“To me it was amazing,” M’Lot said of her partner, whom she’s been with for 47 years and married for 18. “I was just thrilled to pieces with that. Another thing that she would never brag about is that she was so accurate with her pistols.”
After two and a half years at the airport, Briggs transferred to the intelligence unit to work in surveillance. As the only woman on the joint task force between the RCMP and Winnipeg Police Service, Briggs often worked long hours and overtime.
“I got called a lot,” Briggs said. “Sometimes I would get home from work … and the phone would ring. It started to wear on me a little bit.”
She said she didn’t have a social life because she was constantly on call and left after three years, choosing to work for Service Canada. During her last shift as an RCMP officer, she went into work on a Monday morning and didn’t get home until Wednesday night.
M’Lot said Briggs doesn’t talk about the dangerous aspects of what her job entailed, like following criminals or going undercover.
“I worried, especially when she had to travel out of the province,” M’Lot said, adding cellphones weren’t an option for staying in touch at the time. “I knew her job was to be in the background, but nevertheless, they did get caught a couple times following somebody.”
M’Lot said her wife was well respected and didn’t have to deal with many of the problems women face now.
“I got a little bit of teasing at first and that was fine. I’d just give it right back,” Briggs laughed. “I think the men respected me. Once the men realized that (women) could do that job, it straightened that out.”
The RCMP have said many female officers have encountered gender-based harassment and discrimination over the years.
“Members of Troop 17 demonstrated what is possible for women in the RCMP and helped to inspire future generations of women to join our organization,” the RCMP website reads.
M’Lot said she’s happy to see the RCMP finally allowing a wider variety of people into the service and for becoming more inclusive, especially for the queer community. Briggs said she had to hide the fact she was gay, which she said she realized after finishing her training.
The former officer is excited to catch up with old classmates at a Troop 17 reunion next weekend at the Regina Depot where tours, a fashion show and a troop graduation are on the bill.
She believes the RCMP has learned to value women and what they are capable of over the past 50 years.
“I would say to any young woman or girls that are thinking about being a police person that they can do the job just as well, if not better than the men can do, so go for it,” Briggs said. “Women have definitely proven themselves.”
jura.mcilraith@freepress.mb.ca