Mounties on the Cover Exhibit Opens March 20, 2017

Mounties on the Cover is an exhibition containing highlights of a large and extraordinary collection of books that depict the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The Mountie appeared in hundreds of Hollywood movies but was more often seen in the works of hundreds of artists and illustrators, on the covers of thousands of dust jackets, magazines, and comic books.

Robert Leighton.Sergeant Silk, the Prairie Scout. 1929. Robert Leighton (1859-1933) was born in Scotland. He wrote seven books about Mounties. This dust jacket appeared on many other children’s books not authored by Leighton and with no Mountie content, suggesting that it was used as a marketing tool.

The collection represents 50 years of book collecting by distinguished Staff Sergeant (retired) Al Lund of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who generously donated his entire collection to the University of Alberta Libraries in recent years.

The exhibition opens to the public on Monday, March 20th in Bruce Peel Special Collections (Rutherford South, lower level). For more details: bpsc.library.ualberta.ca