Following Confederation with Canada in 1949, the Newfoundland Ranger Force, formed in 1935 to police the rural areas of what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, ceased to exist.
(In Picture: Lou Stuckless and George Powell)
The last man to join the famous Newfoundland Rangers was Louis “Lou” Stuckless from Tizzard’s Harbour. After his education at Tizzard’s Harbour, he attended Memorial University College and became a schoolteacher.
Stuckless was also the last of the Rangers to take their discharge from the RCMP.
When S/Sgt. Frank Cheeseman, a former Newfoundland Ranger, retired on July 31, 1982, Lou Stuckless became, ‘The Lone Ranger.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police assumed responsibility for provincial policing in Newfoundland on August 1, 1950. At that time, forty-five members of the Newfoundland constabulary and all forty-six members of the Newfoundland Ranger force became members of the Force.
S/Sgt. Stuckless signed up with the Rangers in July 1949 and served for one year and eleven days then joined the RCMP and served for another thirty-four years. Staff Sgt Louis Stuckless was N.C.O. in charge of Grand Falls Detachment when he retired in 1983.
For more RCMP stories you can buy "In Search of Adventure - 70 Years of the RCMP in Newfoundland and Labrador" here
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