The Force in the North

Staff Sergeant Jim Hickling

Jim’s career with the RCMP involved an above-average number of moves, with 37 actual transfers in 35 years of service. His last decade of work happened to be served out of one city, Winnipeg, where he lives today.

Jim spent much of his Mountie life in and out of the remote North—including Kalumet, Yukon, Herschel Island, Alaska, and Aklavik, NWT, although he spent his first few years of service criss-crossing Nova Scotia. His inaugural post was to Prince Rupert, BC, in 1951. Jim joined the RCMP in Toronto, a few hours away from his home in Carlsruhe, Ontario, a small farming community. 

Before retiring from the force in 1986, Jim was in charge of the detachment at Winnipeg International Airport, a very different pace from his post-RCMP career as a Renewable Resources officer for the NWT government at the remote Mile 222. For seven summers between 1986 and 1992, Jim flew into Whitehorse, Yukon, and drove the hundreds of kilometers across the NWT border to the isolated trailer where he would collect trophy fees from the big game hunters and guides who were passing through. Sometimes his wife Sammi, whom he married in 1956, would keep him company. 

Jim and Sammi have two sons and a daughter and several grandchildren. Jim is a competitive curler and is chairman of the RCMP’s membership committee for Manitoba.