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Major-general Sir Samuel Benfield Steele (5 January 1848 – 30 January 1919) was a Canadian soldier and policeman. He was an officer of the North-West Mounted Police, head of the Yukon detachment during the Klondike Gold Rush, and commanding officer of Strathcona's Horse during the Boer War.
In 1877, he was assigned to meet with Sitting Bull, who, having defeated Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Little Bighorn, had moved with his people into Canada to escape American vengeance. Steele along with U.S. Army Major General Alfred Howe Terry attempted to persuade Sitting Bull to return to the United States. (Most of the Sioux returned a few years later.)
During the North-West Rebellion, Steele was dispatched with a small force. Missing the Battle of Batoche, the Mounties were sent to move against the last resistance force led by Big Bear. He was present at the Battle of Frenchman's Butte, where Big Bear's warriors defeated the Canadian forces under General Thomas Bland Strange. Two weeks later, Steele and his two dozen Mounties defeated Big Bear's force at Loon Lake, District of Saskatchewan, in the last battle fought on Canadian territory. The contributions of the NWMP in putting down the rebellion went largely ignored and unrewarded, to Steele's great annoyance. By 1885, Steele was recalled to Calgary, where he was tasked with organizing and commanding the scouting contingent for Major General T.B. Strange’s Alberta Field Force. Steele’s Scouts performed well, which led to his promotion to superintendent after the rebellion. He established an NWMP station in the town of Galbraiths Ferry, which was later named to Fort Steele in British Columbia, after Steele solved a murder in the town. He then moved on to Fort Macleod, District of Alberta, in 1888.
In 1887, Steele was ordered to take “D” Division to southeastern British Columbia, where the provincial government had mismanaged relations with the Ktunaxa (Kootenay) nation to the point that violence was threatened. Steele’s men built Fort Steele on the Kootenay River, and he resolved the situation through patient diplomacy with Chief Isadore. The division returned to Fort Macleod in the summer of 1888, and Steele commanded that post, the largest outside NWMP headquarters in Regina, for the next decade.
In 1889, at Fort Macleod, he met Marie-Elizabeth de Lotbinière-Harwood (1859–1951), daughter of Robert William Harwood. They were married at Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec, in 1890. They had three children, including Harwood Steele, who fictionalized episodes from his father's life in novels such as Spirit-of-Iron (1929).
The discovery of gold in the Klondike in the late 1890s presented Steele with a new challenge. Although he campaigned unsuccessfully for the position of assistant commissioner in 1892, in January 1898, he was sent to succeed Charles Constantine as commissioner and to establish customs posts at the head of the White Pass and , and at Lake Bennett. He was noted for his hard line with the hundreds of unruly and independent-minded prospectors, many of them American. To help control the situation, he established the rule that no one would be allowed to enter the Yukon without a ton of goods to support himself, thus preventing the entry of desperate and potentially-unruly speculators and adventurers.
Steele and his force made the Klondike Gold Rush one of the most orderly of its kind in history and made the NWMP famous around the world, which ensured its survival at a critical time, as the force's dissolution was being debated in Parliament. By July 1898, Steele commanded all the NWMP in the Yukon area, and was a member of the territorial council. As the force reported directly to Ottawa, Steele had almost free rein to run things as he chose, always with an eye towards maintaining law, order, and Canadian sovereignty. He moved to Dawson City in September 1898.
After taking the unit back to Canada early in 1901, Steele returned to South Africa that same year to command 'B' Division of the South African Constabulary, a position he held until 1906. On his return to Canada in 1907, Steele assumed command of Military Division No. 13 in Alberta and the District of Mackenzie, and then in 1910 assumed command of Division No. 10 at Winnipeg, where he spent his time regrouping Lord Strathcona's Horse and in preparing his memoirs.
Steele requested active military duty upon the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. He was initially rejected for command on the grounds of age. However, a compromise was reached which allowed him to act as commander of the 2nd Canadian Division until the formation was sent to France, whereupon he would be replaced. After accompanying the division to England, Steele was offered an administrative post as commanding officer of the South-East District.
Matters were complicated, however, when Canadian Minister of Defence Sam Hughes insisted that Steele also be made commander of all Canadian troops in Europe, a slight problem, as there were two brigadier-generals who each believed the Canadian command was his. The issue was not resolved until 1916, when the new Minister of Overseas Military Forces of Canada, Sir G. H. Perley, removed Steele from his Canadian command after Steele refused to return to Canada as a recruiter. He kept his British command until his retirement on 15 July 1918. While in Britain, Steele was knighted, on 1 January 1918, and was made a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, and Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George.
Canada's fifth-tallest mountain, Mount Steele, is named after him.
CFB Edmonton, the home of Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), is now called Steele Barracks after Major General Steele.
Steele Narrows at Loon Lake was the site of the Battle of Loon Lake, the last battle in the North-West Rebellion. Steele's Alberta scouts fought there.
In 1979 Scarborough School Board, now Toronto District School Board named a grade school after him, Sir Samuel B Steele Junior Public School.
In 2020, the Orillia Museum of Art and History put on an exhibit of some of Steele’s correspondence with Thomas Blaney of Orillia, who helped Steele look after his family affairs while Steele was out of the country. "Sam Steele: Letters from the Past", Orillia Museum of Art and History.
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