An odd footnote in history is how Canadian chapters of the KKK were recognized by their “Red Dragon” theme or even “Grand Ragon”, as explained at the University of Washington.

The Royal Riders were a Ku Klux Klan auxiliary for people who were “Anglo-Saxon” and English-speaking but not technically native-born American citizens.

While many Royal Riders chapters were in the United States, the KKK also organized chapters in Canada. Some of the earliest documented Klan organizing in Canada occurred in British Columbia in November, 1921, at roughly the same time that organizers first began working in Washington state.

The Royal Riders of the Red Robe was only nominally a separate organization from the Klan. It was listed in the Klan’s Pacific Northwest Domain Directory, shared an office with Seattle Klan Local 4, and had its meetings with similar rituals in the same places as the Seattle Klan. Beginning in 1923, Klan events and propaganda came to regularly feature Royal Rider initiations and news.

The Grand Ragon (as opposed to the Klan’s Grand Dragon) of the Pacific Northwest Realm of the Royal Riders of the Red Robe was J. Arthur Herdon, and the King County Ragon was Walter L. Fowler. Naturalized but not native-born citizens in Seattle’s Royal Riders were organized into another Klan Auxiliary, the American Krusaders, on October 18, 1923.