author
Harwood Steele
1897–1978
Raised in the world of the North-West Mounted Police, this Canadian writer turned family history, military experience, and frontier lore into vivid adventure stories. His books draw on real people and real events, giving them the pace of fiction without losing their historical feel.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Harwood Elmes Robert Steele (1897–1978) was a Canadian author and soldier, and the only son of Major-General Sir Sam Steele of the North-West Mounted Police. Growing up around Mounties and hearing stories firsthand gave him a close connection to the people and events that later shaped his writing.
During the First World War, Steele served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was awarded the Military Cross in 1919. After the war, records indicate that he worked as a journalist, took part in the 1925 Canadian government sovereignty expedition into the High Arctic, and later gave lectures on RCMP history and policing in the Arctic.
His writing often blended history with storytelling. In the introduction to his novel Spirit-of-Iron, he described the book as an attempt to present fact in the form of romantic fiction, and that approach seems to sum up much of his appeal: he wrote adventure-filled narratives rooted in the history of Western Canada, the Mounties, and the North.