She doesn’t have a black belt in karate, and she believes that it’s much easier to talk a prisoner into the vehicle than administer the ever-handy pepper spray.
But the newest member to arrive at Slave Lake’s RCMP detachment has a weapon that comes naturally – in a manner of speaking.
“I have red hair,” Const. Marcia Rosenke answers with a grin when asked how she convinces prisoners she means business.
The Didsbury native arrived at this detachment in February, and like many of her young counterparts, actually requested the posting.
“I wanted busy,” she says, and that wasn’t what she was experiencing at Jasper, where she volunteered to go when the RCMP was assisting Parks Canada after wardens walked off the job. Straight out of depot, she decided the posting was something different than anything she’d likely experience with the force, so volunteered for the assignment.
Slave Lake, however, is more to the liking of the member who readily admits the “five minutes of adrenalin and five hours of paperwork ” on many files provide the best and the worst of this career.
It’s a job she set her sights on many years ago, and “I never wanted to do anything else.” So no one was surprised when she announced she was joining the Royal Reds.
In fact, so well known was her heading among friends that she was never even tempted with vices that could have got in the way of her career.
“My friends were great,” she says. And even though there may have been less-than-legal items floating around at parties she attended, the constable was never confronted with the decision. After high school she took off a year, and then headed back to school to earn a Social Work diploma and enhance her interview and interaction skills.
She worked at the child welfare office in Strathmore near Calgary while she waited for the call from the RCMP.
There have been few surprises since she arrived in Slave Lake says the 26-year-old officer. She requested Slave Lake for its reputation of being a relatively busy detachment, but added the town didn’t really measure up to some of her hopes and aspirations.
“The guys are doing such a good job they got rid of the bad guys before I arrived,” she says with chagrin. “They should have waited for me.”
But assigned to be working the streets during the annual Riverboat Daze celebrations, the officer was clearly pumped and looking forward to the action.
“At last.”
She’s clearly a no-nonsense lady, but Rosenke has one secret that she usually keeps under wraps – or at least under her boots.
“I wear Winnie the Pooh socks every day,” she admits with a grin. But often nobody knows but the kids. Her training with child welfare taught her that youngsters in tough situations are often hesitant to talk about what they’ve been through. But with those fuzzy secrets under her shiny black boots, the officer has one more hidden tool.
“They’re not force issue,” she adds, “but they really help my rapport with the kids.”

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