RCMP Superintendent (Retired) Joseph Healy is nominated for his work creating the RCMP National Graves Discovery Database. Following retirement, Supt. Healy set out to create a comprehensive database of every deceased member of the North West Mounted Police, the Royal North West Mounted Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
He spent years travelling throughout North America, photographing graves, and has done significant research to locate lost and unmarked graves. Of the 300 North West Mounted Police who embarked on the famous March West, 190 graves have been located, inspected, photographed and entered into the database.
Supt. Healy has never accepted donations to run the site and has operated the entire project out of pocket since 2007. The website is frequently referred to by RCMP administrators, historians, archivists, genealogists, etc.
The database now contains over 72,586 names, career details, war records, service numbers and death facts for all members of the North West Mounted Police, the Royal North West Mounted Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and continues to be updated.
Through his hard work, he has created “a National Treasure.”