Canadian True Crime - 78 The Mad Trapper of Rat River

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES AND YUKONThe story of Canada's longest manhunt. In 1931 a strange man arrived at Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories—and disrupted the status quo.SURVEY: Tell us what you think about Canadian True Crime!Take survey nowThanks for supporting my sponsors!See the special offer codes here AD FREE Exclusive feed - Canadian True Crime supportersAccess ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and more on Patreon and Supercast. Learn morePodcast recommendation:True North True Crime DOCUMENTARY:Arctic Manhunt: The Hunt for the Mad Trapper (focuses on the exhummation and DNA testing) All credits and information sources can be found on the page for this episode at canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production. The podcast contains course language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. This story takes place in the far north, the Canadian Arctic, the part of Canada that lies east of Alaska and west of Greenland. The area is made up of three Canadian territories, Nunavut, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.

When it comes to Canada's total land area, these three northern territories make up around 40% of the land, but they have less than 1% of the population. It can be rugged and unforgiving terrain, and it's been described as one of the harshest places on earth, especially in the winter. In the Inovik region of the Northwest Territories is the small settlement of Fort McPherson. It was first established in the 1840s as a trading post,

a place where people came together from various regions to trade goods and services. The fur trade was a big deal in Canada at the time. The practice of trapping animals and selling their fur goes back thousands of years with indigenous people in North America. The Gwichian people of Alaska and Canada lived off the land and were dependent on caribou, the Canadian version of reindeer, for their existence. They needed the meat and fur to sustain themselves and also to trade for other items they needed.

In the 1600s, after European settlers and explorers arrived and started to see the value of fur trapping, they adopted the practice too, bringing with them updated technologies which were difficult for the indigenous to compete with. By the 1800s, historic Canadian companies like the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company also wanted to capitalise on the fur trade, adding to the already fierce competition in the fur trapping and trading market. It was actually Hudson's Bay Company who established the trading post at Fort Macpherson.

It was the summer of 1931 and Bill Douglas was the factor or chief trader at the Fort Macpherson Trading Post. A man entered the post one day and Bill could see straight away that he wasn't from the area. The man struck him as being a loner. His reddened and hardened skin indicated that perhaps he'd been living in the northern wilderness for months. He had cold blue eyes. He was also a man of few words, only speaking with Bill long enough to order supplies. He wanted a 16 gauge Ivor Johnson single barrel shotgun and 25 shells. According to the book Mad Trapper of Rat River by Dick North,

Bill Douglas thought the man was an ideal customer. Quote, he knew what he wanted, bought it with no hesitation and seemed to have plenty of cash. Before long, word had started to spread that some local Gwichian children had come across his camp and even though they'd also gotten very few words out of them, they had learned that his name was Albert Johnson. Over the next 10 days, the man, now known as Albert Johnson, spent a total of $1,400 at the Trading Post. Remember, this was 1931. In today's dollars, it would have been about $25,000.

When trader Bill Douglas asked him what his plans were, the man would only matter that he was getting an outfit together to trap in Rat River Country. Bill noticed that he was carrying several thousand dollars in cash, which struck him as odd because most trappers sent their money elsewhere and rarely carried any cash. There was something different about this man. Bill was also concerned about the fact that Rat River was notoriously treacherous and posed considerable safety issues for someone who wasn't familiar with the area. It was 1931 and the Great Depression had motivated many desperate men to head north

into the bush to try and earn some money through hunting and trapping. Very few of them seriously considered how difficult trapping animals really was. They had a lack of awareness and knowledge of the area, but also, they didn't know what they didn't know. They seemed to have no idea just how unqualified they were to trap their safely and successfully. What ended up happening a lot of the time was that they would get into a dangerous situation and it would be up to the Gwich'in and the RCMP to get them out of it, an annoying inconvenience. But the local Gwich'in people were sympathetic to their plight. According to an essay called What is My Responsibility to the Story, the Albert Johnson story in historical and cultural

context by oral historian Leslie McCartney, even though trapping was their livelihood and primary means of income, if newcomers to the area announced themselves and their intentions, as was the cultural norm, the Gwich'in families would help them out, sewing warm clothing for them, showing them how to travel safely on the land, locations that might be good to lay new trap lines, and of course how to survive the different seasons. And when they got themselves into trouble, the Gwich'in were often instrumental in calling for the RCMP to come and assist. But this newcomer, this Albert Johnson, had said nothing. He didn't announce himself when he arrived and he didn't behave the way other newcomers did, and that had the locals on edge.

It didn't take long before the reports of the mysterious newcomer reached the RCMP detachment at Eklavik, the regional administrative centre for the territorial government at the time. Constable Edgar Millen was dispatched to go south to Fort McPherson, check in on the man, and make sure he knew what he was heading into and was properly equipped, and didn't end up causing any issues for the RCMP or the Gwich'in. Millen was known to be fair in all his dealings, and was well regarded. He was born in Balfast, Ireland, and as a child his family immigrated to Edmonton, Canada. At age 19 or 20, Millen joined the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, which soon became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP. He volunteered for a posting up

north and was sent to Eklavik where he'd been stationed for eight years at the time. Millen was said to be quite a popular man in the area, so it was the natural choice to approach Albert Johnson in an unassuming way. When he arrived in Fort McPherson, he went to the trading post first to talk to Bill Douglas and find out all he could about the mysterious Albert Johnson. Bill told the Constable that the man had now bought a nine-foot canoe off a local Gwich'in, and by all indications, he still had plans to go trapping up Rat River. Constable Millen tracked down Johnson on a steamboat landing where he was assembling his gear. Millen sized him up. Johnson was a white man and appeared to be about 35 to 40 years old, about five foot nine or ten

with brown hair and those ice blue eyes. He was also fairly clean shaven, which was not common for trappers. Constable Millen shook hands with him and casually asked him if there was anything he could do to help. Johnson said no, he was about to leave. Millen detected some kind of Scandinavian accent. He asked how the man arrived. With as few words as possible, Johnson said that he came from the prairies via the Mackenzie River system. But Bill Douglas from the trading post said the Gwich'in reported that Albert Johnson came via the Peel River. The two rivers were only a few miles apart and could have easily been confused, or maybe the man was lying for some reason. According to the book Mad Trapper of Rat River, it was common for men in that area

to be hesitant about giving details like where they'd come from and where they were going, and it was in their own self-interest not to tell others where they'd been. Trapping was a competitive livelihood. Regardless, Constable Millen's first concern was potential risk mitigation when it came to the man's safety. Whether Johnson was lying or not, Constable Millen wanted to keep things civil and didn't press that particular issue. He asked Johnson if he was going to stay around for a while. Johnson said he didn't know. They spoke briefly about going to Rat River, and the Constable told him that it was impossible to do alone. He said Johnson would need a trapping license and offered to help him get it and also advised him to hire a local guide who knew the

area. At this suggestion, Johnson bristled up. He insisted that he preferred being alone and didn't want people bothering him. According to a 1955 article in McLean's magazine called Who Was the Mad Trapper of Rat River, Johnson said that the police always caused trouble and he didn't want anything to do with them. Constable Millen noticed Johnson's eyes flashed with a look of hatred and sensed that any efforts to deter him would be in vain. He didn't want to inflame the situation. It was clear that the conversation was over. Constable Millen had done his duty, so he shrugged and walked away. That was the summer of 1931. By December, the winter had set in and the situation had changed.

A group of Gwichan people showed up to the RCMP post angry and frightened. They said that the strange white man called Albert Johnson was sabotaging and vandalizing their traps. The RCMP heard that Johnson had failed to get up Rat River Rapids, just as everyone predicted. But he set up camp near the mouth of Rat Canyon and bought a cabin close to a trap line that had been used by the Gwichan for centuries. They found their traps disabled and destroyed and sometimes Johnson would substitute them with his own. To the Gwichan people, fur trapping was their livelihood. There was room for everyone, but Albert Johnson was not playing nice. The Gwichan reported that they went to his cabin to reason with him, but Johnson threatened them

with a rifle. They were out of ideas, so they reported it to the RCMP. Constable Millen had two men who were perfect for the job. His second Constable, AW King, was an athletic man known as one of the most rugged at the RCMP headquarters. Accompanying him was Gwichan's special Constable Joe Bernard. Both King and Bernard were familiar with the area where the cabin was located. So on Boxing Day of 1931, the pair set out on dog sleds to scope out the situation. Their goal was to have a casual conversation with Johnson and try and resolve the issue peacefully. The journey took almost three days, but eventually they rounded a bend on the frozen Rat River and spotted the cabin that Albert Johnson had built. Smoke billowed from the stove pipe,

indicating that someone was likely inside. King knocked at the door. There was no reply. Perhaps Johnson was out and would return soon. King walked around the cabin. It seemed not very high, but he saw that the bottom part of it was sunk three to four feet into the gravel bank. He estimated the cabin size to be roughly eight by ten feet. The roof was made up of poles that had been reinforced by sod or turf that was now frozen solid. King also noticed there were rifle holes built into every corner of the cabin which unnerved him. He knocked again and looked through a window to peer in. Immediately a sack covered up the window and then there was silence. There was definitely someone in there and he was making it clear he did not want to be interrupted.

King cursed. This meant he would have to trek back and get a search warrant and then another two to three days to get back to the cabin to present it and he was really looking forward to attending a New Year's party in Fort MacPherson. The search warrant was arranged by Inspector A. N. Eames, the officer in charge of the RCMP's Western Arctic region. King and Bernard would go back, but just to be safe, they would be accompanied by another RCMP constable, Robert McDowell, and another Gwichin special constable, Lazarus Citatulis. The group set out on December 31, 1931 for sure missing that New Year's Eve party. When they reached the cabin, they each had assigned roles. The Gwichin special constables Bernard and Citatulis would stay with the dogs and

scout around the back. The RCMP constables would approach the cabin door, King first, with McDowell covering him. They knew there was a likelihood that the man inside might be hostile, but they wanted to start things as amicably as possible. When King got to the door, he asked, are you there, Mr. Johnson? He heard movement from inside the cabin, but there was no answer. According to the documentary Arctic manhunt Hunt for the Mad Trapper, they had no idea that the cabin had been set up as a kind of bunker. King yelled back that he had a search warrant, and if Johnson didn't open up, he'll have to break the door down. There was still no answer. King tried to use his shoulder to forcibly open the door multiple times. Suddenly,

bullets pierced the door and hurled King backwards into the snow. He'd been shot in the chest. While he staggered away and collapsed into the brush, the other three men returned fire, but they had to retreat. King had been shot in the chest and desperately needed to be rushed to hospital in a clavicle. First, they bandaged his wounded side, bundled him in iderdowns, and tied him to the toboggan to be towed by the dogs. King was suffering massive blood loss, and there was no time to spare, so the three men travelled day and night. McLean's magazine described their thighs being completely numb as they carried King into hospital in a clavicle. They made it in just 24 hours, half the time it would usually take.

Miraculously, the bullet had just missed King's heart and lungs by an inch, and doctors were able to save his life. But what to do about Albert Johnson? He was no longer just a problem. He had now shot a police officer and was officially a wanted man. I'm Christy, an Australian who's called Canada home for more than a decade, and this is my passion project. Join me to hear about some of the most thought-provoking and often heartbreaking true crime cases in Canada. Using court documents and news archives, I take you through each story from beginning to end, with a look at the way the media covered the crime and the impact it had on the community. This is Canadian True Crime.

As word of the shooting started spreading across the area, Inspector Eames decided to go back himself along with a strategically picked group. McDowell, Cititulis and Bernard would return. This time Constable Millen would go as well, since he was the one who had spoken to Johnson soon after he first came to town. And accompanying the three RCMP and the two Gwichans special constables were three more men, trappers. Inspector Eames chose the trappers because he figured they may be able to relate better to Johnson, given he was also a trapper. Once the sled dogs had recuperated, the eight men set out for a third time. This time they were armed with dynamite and ready for battle.

When they arrived at the cabin site, they quietly waited at the sides of the riverbank that cradled the cabin. They listened for noises coming from the cabin that might indicate someone was inside. They knew Johnson was highly unpredictable and they wanted to make sure that they knew where he was before they did anything. Soon they heard the sound of kitchen utensils. Inspector Eames yelled out that the RCMP had arrived and asked Johnson to come out. Eames said that there was no serious charge against Johnson and that the man he shot wasn't dead. They waited for a response, but only silence came. Eames told Johnson he may as well give up because this time there were eight men, including three trappers. Quote, don't make it tough for

yourself. More silence. As Eames instructed the men to start approaching the cabin from behind the riverbank, the sound of gunfire came out of the small holes in the cabin, providing protection for Johnson as he went on the offensive. Because the holes also meant visibility from inside the cabin would be limited, the men dropped to the snow where Johnson wouldn't be able to see them and then slowly inched forward. Two of them made it to the front door of the cabin and rammed their rifle butts against it repeatedly in an effort to smash it down, but the gunfire erupted again and drove them back. Their efforts had managed to break the door open slightly and Inspector Eames caught a quick glimpse of Johnson inside, lying by a double

barrier of logs sunk at least three feet into the earth. The cabin had been fortified with a double wall. This man was clearly intelligent and strategic. It was time to take a break and re-strategize. Luckily the eight men had escaped being hit by bullets and retreated to the river to set up camp. It was January of 1932 and it was freezing. Their hands were starting to get frostbite and they needed to get warm as soon as possible. They built a fire which they also used to thaw out the dynamite they had brought with them. As for strategy, one of the three trappers, a man called Lang, suggested that they throw a small charge of dynamite over to try and open a hole in the cabin wall. A small hole because they

didn't want to kill him, they just wanted him to leave. Inspector Eames gave his approval for this plan, but the dynamite exploded before it hit the cabin and had no impact. Plan B. Lang suggested that he get on top of the roof of the cabin and drop a bigger dynamite charge on it to see if it would do more damage. This was given the nod of approval. Dodging constant gunfire, Lang made it to the roof, lit the fuse and flattened out for impact. This time the blast left a hole in the cabin. They were certain that this must have done the trick and Johnson would now surrender. According to McLean's, Lang peered down into the cabin and saw Albert Johnson crouched on the floor completely unhurt. He had a revolver in one hand and a sawn-off shotgun in the other and there were

two other rifles next to him. Suddenly Johnson looked up and saw Lang. For what felt like a minute, the two looked at each other in the eye and then Johnson fired off another shot. Lang was able to dodge it and retreated back to the riverbank. It was clear that Johnson was prepped for battle and was not going to give himself up anytime soon. Throughout the night, they threw flares at the cabin to see if the light would reveal what Johnson was doing through the whole of the cabin, but he hid himself in there well. Time for a new plan. Constable Mellon would move in quietly while the other men banded together to fake a diversion, but Johnson was no fool. He heard the crunch of Mellon's snowshoes and started firing again.

At 3am, they decided to make one last attempt before giving up. The symptoms of hyperthermia were starting to show. The men were exhausted both by the impact of the cold and the physicality of the night's activities and they were running low on food and supplies. One last attempt. They threw the last of their dynamite at the front of the cabin and when it exploded, Inspector Eames and another one of the trappers called Guardland ran towards the broken door. Guardland with a flashlight so that Eames with the gun would be able to see what he was firing at. They hoped that with all the kerfuffle, they may be able to get a clear shot at Johnson, but Johnson was again on the ball. As soon as he saw that flashlight switch on,

he shot it clean out of Guardland's hand. Without being able to see what they were doing, the men knew that Johnson had won again. By now, it was minus 50 degrees. The men had no choice but to retreat back to a clavec, restock their supplies and come up with a new strategy. By this point, newspapers had started reporting heavily on the hunt for Albert Johnson and the story made headlines across Canada and the United States. It was also one of the first instances of people using radios to follow along, listening in for daily updates about the search and about Johnson's whereabouts. Author Dick North credited the search as, quote, boosting radio from a curiosity piece to a place of importance in the news media field, as well as being a major

contributor to a boom in radio sales across North America. The media gave Johnson the nickname the mad trapper of Rat River, which many took to mean he was a loner, an extreme risk taker, and perhaps not of sound mind. But to the men who had been exhausting themselves trying to catch him, he was anything but mad. He clearly knew exactly what he was doing. They decided that he must be some kind of criminal that was on the run. There was simply no need for him to be acting this way. After all, he'd had multiple offers of help when he first arrived, but he was cagey and then completely hostile. The only possible explanation was that he must be a dangerous fugitive. A group of men got together to go back, with Constable Millen and

one of the trappers going ahead of the others. When they arrived at the half-collapsed cabin, they saw that it had been completely abandoned. The fugitive had moved on. They went inside to look around and were amazed to find that the sunken floor had been dug up and turned into a series of bunkers, just large enough for Johnson to hide in. There was also a pretty smartly designed heating system in the cabin, which was further proof that he knew what he was doing. The two men looked around some more, hoping to find anything that might reveal where he'd gone, who he really was or what he was running from. But all that was left inside the cabin were some empty shell casings and half-raw caribou scraps. And a recent blizzard had swept away any tracks or evidence of Johnson's

whereabouts. After the rest of the group arrived, they had a discussion about what to do next. They assumed that Johnson could not have gone far. There had been that blizzard. They knew he had no dogs, so he was on foot with whatever he could carry himself. His snowshoes were homemade and would leave distinctive tracks, and he would have to hunt or trap as he travelled to get food. They were certain that Johnson must have stayed somewhere within the Rat River Canyon. They spent four days searching the entire area but saw no trace of him. After assessing how much food and supplies they had left, Inspector Eames decided to cut the group in half, leaving only Constable Millen,

an army sergeant and two of the trappers who were considered expert shooters. The rest were sent back to a clavec. So now the four remaining men hunted in pairs. At one point they found some caribou meat that had been stashed. This must be him. They assumed that Johnson would return to the area and staked it out for a few days, but he didn't. They kept going. Occasionally they would catch his tracks in the snow, but then they would just stop. According to the book The Mad Trapper Unearthing a Mystery by Barbara Smith, sometimes Johnson seemed to avoid leaving tracks and when the group found them again, they wondered if he was doing it on purpose to toy with them. They discovered that sometimes he would even wear his snowshoes on backwards to steer them in the wrong direction.

Skilled Gwichin trappers joined the search and soon so did the Inuit of the western Canadian Arctic region. It was clear to everyone that the fugitive was heading to the Yukon and would likely try and get past the continental divide and through to Alaska. The indigenous trappers knew the land and knew that no man had ever crossed the divide alone on foot and were certain that Johnson wouldn't be able to either. After all, this was in the middle of winter in the Arctic with white out blizzard conditions and temperatures routinely at minus 40 degrees Celsius and there's no need to convert to Fahrenheit because minus 40 is where the two scales converge. It was that cold. Also, Johnson's backpack must have been heavy, considering it held his guns and ammunition,

making it even harder to track and with the kind of physical activity he was undertaking, he would need three to four times the normal amount of calories every day just to sustain himself. According to forensic experts on the documentary Arctic Manhunt, he was in effect completing a marathon every day, a real feat of human endurance. And if he used his rifle to hunt, the sound would give his location away, so his activities would have been limited to whatever game he could trap along the way. He couldn't light a fire to warm himself or cook, as that would have also given away his location unless he first built a shelter in a snowdrift. The odds were completely stacked against Johnson making it past the divide,

so the four hunters kept going, sure that he would exhaust himself before too long. On January 28, 1932, almost two weeks into the Manhunt, one of the trappers picked up a faint blue haze in the distance, indicating a camp. They scrambled to a cliff edge to get a better look and saw the speck of a man sitting beside a campfire. There was no one else it could be, but Johnson. But the two trappers didn't know what to do about it. They weren't RCMP and they didn't want to shoot and kill him and potentially be charged with manslaughter. They decided to make a note of the location and meet back up with the other pair, and then Constable Millen would need to determine the next step. Do you have a passion project that you're ready to take to

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and when you're ready to launch, use offer code CTC to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash ctc with offer code CTC and get your passion project off the ground today. The next morning, all four men went back to the cliff edge to get another look at the camp. This time they couldn't see Johnson, and one of the trackers suggested he might be sleeping. Constable Millen was usually known as someone who was proactive and almost took on too much risk, but now he seemed hesitant. Albert Johnson was clearly tough and resilient, had great powers of endurance, and was also super smart in how he moved and strategized. The men figured he might have had some kind of special training at some point in his life, perhaps military. Constable

Millen had a new plan. The four men split into two different pairs. According to McLean's, the Army Sergeant and one trapper would search the edge of the campsite, and Constable Millen and the other trapper would go straight at the campsite. Quote, if he comes out and starts shooting at us, you guys pick him off. If he doesn't lift his gun, he won't get hurt. Once the two men started charging towards the campsite, the pair at the edge of the campsite saw Johnson dive into a snow trench he'd built. Always prepared, he then started shooting at them, and the men fired back. Then, silence. Constable Millen called out. Johnson, cut the shooting, you can't get away, put down that rifle before you kill someone. Again, silence. The men waited patiently for

Johnson's next move. Seconds went by, then minutes, and before they knew it, two hours had passed and it was starting to get dark. Millen signalled to the men that it was time to move in. Johnson fired more shots. Millen fired back, and Johnson fired three more shots. Millen fell face down in the snow. The other men came crawling over and quickly tied the laces of his moccasins together so they could drag him to safety. Once they got to the riverbank, they saw that Millen's face was gray and his body had already begun to freeze. Constable Edgar Millen had received a fatal shot to the chest and had died, aged 31. Many retellings of this story report that the remaining three men heard Albert Johnson laughing, although this

hasn't been verified. Regardless, the three were shocked. They couldn't believe how things had turned out. They checked Millen's rifle and saw that a missing screw had caused it to jam, which is what gave Johnson the time to get those last shots in. As they huddled together trying to figure out what to do next, they heard Johnson coughing. They were devastated. What seemed to be an adventure had quickly turned into a tragedy, and they were now out of ideas on how to catch Johnson. Two of the men agreed to stay. They would continue watching Johnson and ensure that Millen's body wasn't ravaged by wildlife. The other men trekked back to a clavec to deliver the tragic news to Inspector Eames

and get instruction about what to do next. By the time the news made its way to newspapers and radio in North America, the public were transfixed and outraged. The men had now shot two RCMP officers, and one of them, the highly respected Constable Millen, was dead. The intriguing manhunt for the mad trapper of Rat River was top news, and everyone in the North was now on the lookout for him. Four days later, Inspector Eames trekked to the site with another group of carefully selected men, but once they got there, they were told by the two that had been waiting that Johnson had managed to slip past them the night before. They followed tracks he left that showed he'd

gone to look at Constable Millen's body, but the trail went cold after that. They had no idea where he'd gone. The group continued to hunt for the next three days, but came up empty-handed. But Johnson continued on, and on some days would make his way more than 50 kilometres through the freezing cold Arctic winter, dealing with constant snowstorms that completely darkened the sky some days. He was expected to cross the Richardson Mountains, and there were only two passes over the mountains, so the RCMP and the Yukon made sure they were both manned. But somehow, Johnson got past them. He found another way that no one had even considered. In yet another extraordinary feat, he managed to do what many experienced climbers with the

correct equipment and right weather conditions had failed at. Johnson had scaled a steep, ice-covered mountainside that was 2,100 metres high. This was hailed by many as being next to impossible. By now, it was well into February, and the manhunt had gone on for six weeks, leaving one RCMP officer dead, one seriously injured, and countless resources depleted. It was all starting to take a toll. Inspector Eames made an unprecedented call. He needed a plane with an experienced pilot to help. Johnson seemed to have superhuman strength, and maybe someone in a plane would be able to spot him better than the men on the ground. This would be the first time in history that a pilot would give direct assistance in a ground

manhunt, and they didn't just get any pilot. They got Captain Wilfred May, the Canadian icon better known as WAP May. May was well known from World War One as being the final Allied pilot to be pursued by the German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron. After the war, WAP May returned to Canada, where he pioneered the role of bush pilot, and was stationed in Edmonton, Alberta, about 1300 miles south of where the search group were in the Yukon. When asked to help with the hunt for the mad trapper, WAP May and his mechanic Jack Bowen were up for it, ready to help both with the search itself, and to replenish the food and supplies for the men on the ground without them having to trek back to a clavec. There was blizzard

after blizzard, making it difficult for May to fly anything but short distances at a time. At one point, the plane was grounded in snow, and he and his mechanic had to dig it out, and the constant barrage of fresh snow also made it difficult for the men on the ground to track anything, but they all kept looking, doing whatever they could. Two days later, tracks were spotted, but they were running in different directions. The group on the ground split up. Hours later, the two groups were frustrated when they came face to face with each other again. While the tracks had appeared to be in opposite directions, they went in a circle. It was clear that this was another deliberate attempt to try and confuse the searches and wear

down their energy. According to the book The Mad Trapper Unearthing a Mystery by Barbara Smith, the odd thing was that instead of spending all his time devising ways to trick and confuse the searches, Johnson could have put all his energy into getting to Alaska and outside of RCMP jurisdiction. He was somehow covering ground on foot, faster than the men who had dog slits, so why didn't he just get out of there? They decided that he mustn't have cared, and maybe he even enjoyed this game of cat and mouse. A sobering thought since Johnson was aware he'd killed one of them already. Despite the treacherous flying conditions, there were clear skies for a short time on February 11th of 1932, and WAP May was able to get a good look around.

He spotted the unique pattern of Johnson's snowshoe trail. This was confirmed by Indigenous trackers who spotted fresh tracks that led down the Bell River. They told the RCMP, who reported back to Inspector Eames. WAP May took off again, flying Inspector Eames, the Army Sergeant, and one of the trappers along the river, checking for signs that Johnson had been there. They spotted some tracks that stopped at the mouth of the Eagle River. It was clear that Johnson had taken his snowshoes off here and was continuing along the tracks already made by migrating Caribou. This development was communicated to the men on the ground, who arrived at the spot two days later and picked up Johnson's trail along the Eagle River.

Major Earl Hersey from the Royal Canadian Signal Regiment that handled military communications was one of them. He had vast experience in the North and was known to be an expert with his rifle. They spent the next few days searching with no luck, but then Hersey slid round at a bend and he spotted Johnson in the river. But Johnson spotted him too and scrambled to climb the steep riverbank to safety. Hersey dropped to one knee and fired his rifle. From behind him, another trapper in the group also fired. Johnson turned around and fired back. One of the bullets hit Major Hersey and he fell to the ground, seriously injured. By this point, the rest of the group had arrived, all yelling at Johnson to surrender.

The riverbank Johnson tried to climb was too steep, so he retreated and made his way over to the other riverbank that had a gentler slope. As he did, he stopped to reload his gun and fire more shots at the group. They returned fire. Suddenly, Johnson dropped to the ground. The group thought he may have been shot, but just seconds later, they realized he was just getting flat on the ground behind his backpack so he could begin rapid fire. Inspector Eames called out, Johnson, this is your last chance to give up. Johnson fired again. From there, the entire search team let loose and started firing back at full force. They could see from his squirms that he was getting hit, but they didn't hear a thing from him. He was completely silent and then he

lay still. One of the searches gingerly approached him, hesitant because Johnson was known for his tricks and maybe this was one of them. Maybe he was just playing dead. They flipped his body over. He was dead. According to author Barbara Smith on the documentary Arctic Manhunt, Johnson was so underweight that he looked, quote, totally emaciated, just a shallower man left there and frozen on his face was this terrible grimace that looked like he was still laughing at them. But this was the end. It was February 17th, 1932 and Albert Johnson had finally been captured. After he abandoned his cabin and went on the run, over the next 30 or so days he had moved through the Northwest Territories into the Yukon and over the Great Divide covering between 150

and 250 kilometers, all on foot and all in the harshest of winter weather. It was only the assistance of the airplane that allowed the search team to catch up with him. Miraculously, the only other person who'd been shot was Major Hersey, who had survived but needed immediate medical attention. Just as this all happened, Wop May's plane arrived and was able to taxi close to where Hersey lay wounded, writhing in pain. He was kneeling to fire when he was hit and the angle of the bullet did a lot of damage, including shattering his elbow, smashing two ribs and piercing his lungs. Hersey was hemorrhaging blood. Wop May gave him a sedative, loaded him into the plane and set off to get him to hospital. But it was a rough flight as they hit the mountains,

there was another blizzard and even though May was afraid, he knew the landscape like the back of his hand so he was able to fly Hersey to safety. According to the website WopMay.com, May remarked that when they got to a clavec, the doctor said that if they had arrived just 15 minutes later, Hersey would have died. Luckily, his life was saved. Johnson's body was examined by the RCMP. He'd been shot five times, one of them severed his spine. He was buried in a cemetery in a clavec with a giant yellow sign erected above his grave that read in part. The mad trapper, Albert Johnson arrived in Rat River. Complaints of local trapper brought the RCMP on him. He shot two officers and became a fugitive of the law with howling

huskies, dangerous trails, frozen knights. The posse finally caught up with him. He was killed up the Eagle River, Feb 17, 1932. The RCMP also examined what was in his backpack and his pockets, looking for clues about who he was and how he'd sustained himself. According to the book The Mad Trapper of Rat River, he had around $2,400 in Canadian and American money, worth $40,000 to $50,000 in today's currency. His pack also included a small glass jar containing five pearls, five pieces of gold dental work and some small pieces of gold, as well as an axe, two rifles, a shotgun and ammunition, a compass, a dead squirrel and a dead bird known as a whiskey jack or Grey J, clues as to what he was eating. He also had several knives, fish hooks, matches,

a razor, a chisel, a sewing kit, wax, string and salt and pepper. Even though he had identified himself as Albert Johnson, they had no information to confirm his identity or where he came from. And as you'll remember, Constable Millen detected a Scandinavian accent. The RCMP took pictures of his face and body and distributed them through newspapers in North America and beyond, hoping that someone would recognize him. The pictures of his face are quite haunting. He died with a look on his face that's a cross between a smile and a sneer. Whatever was happening, he didn't seem to be scared of it. The RCMP fielded hundreds of reports from Europe, the United States and Canada, who thought they knew who Johnson really was. According to McLean's,

various women claimed that he was their husband, father, brother or son, and other people thought he was a multitude of characters including, quote, an escaped criminal called the Blueberry Kid, a murderer from Michigan, a World War One sniper and an ex-provincial policeman. The RCMP investigated each claim. His estimated age of 35 to 40 years at time of death means he could well have served in World War One, which would possibly explain his accurate marksmanship and his ability to keep calm under fire. But none of the leads panned out. His fingerprints and photographs were sent to the Central Bureau of Federal Police in Washington, Stockholm and London. They traced his weapons and banknotes. But all of these leads came to a dead end.

Over the years, several promising leads would emerge. Some trappers saw the Albert Johnson picture and contacted the RCMP to say they knew him in the 1920s, some six years before he strode into Fort McPherson and disrupted the equilibrium. Except the trappers knew this man as a different name, Arthur Nelson. Apparently, Arthur Nelson came from British Columbia and spent a few years in the Yukon before he disappeared in May of 1931. And two months later, the man known as Albert Johnson turned up in Fort McPherson. According to the trappers, there Arthur Nelson was a physical match for Albert Johnson. They were both loners who said very few words and both had the same Scandinavian accent. The two men had similar guns and possessions

and were both excellent marksmen. This lead was investigated by author Dick North, who was researching for the two books he would later write on the case. The Mad Trapper of Rat River, which was originally released in 1972, and then Track Down, the search for the Mad Trapper in 1989. North spoke to the people who had knowledge of the case and were still alive. When he was investigating Arthur Nelson, he discovered that the man had once described himself as a Swedish-American farm boy from North Dakota. In following that lead, Dick North came across a person called Johnny Johnson, a criminal from North Dakota. Johnny was also around the same age. He was born in Norway and moved to North Dakota with his family. As a child, he was taught to

use a rifle to catch food. And then, as a teenager, he committed two robberies and was able to get away from the police before eventually being arrested in Wyoming. He was released from prison, but a few years later he was imprisoned again for stealing a horse. When he was released once again, it was 1922, and that was the last of Johnny Johnson on the historic record. This was nine years before the hunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River. Could the two men have been the same? In his book, Dick North suggested that these three characters were all the same men, Albert Johnson, Arthur Nelson, and Johnny Johnson. Fingerprint comparisons at the time were inconclusive, but it certainly seemed promising.

In 2007, author Mark Frameled would release a book called What Became of Sigvold Anyway? In it, he wrote that he'd been researching for 25 years and put forward a new theory of Albert Johnson's real identity. He believed Johnson was a man called Sigvold Petersen Haskeld, a reclusive Norwegian living in Canada who avoided being conscripted to the First World War and was then paranoid for the rest of his life, thinking that the authorities were looking for him. He was known for having built a cabin that doubled as a fortress on Digby Island on the North Coast of British Columbia before disappearing altogether. This was about four years before Albert Johnson arrived in Fort McPherson, and again, he was a physical match.

So, Albert Johnson was believed to be several different people. Each match was highly plausible, but they were based around circumstantial evidence and lacked concrete proof. In 2007, as part of a Discovery Channel documentary called Arctic Man Hunt, Hunt for the Mad Trapper, that would be released in 2009, the remains of the man known as Albert Johnson were exhumed from his grave at a clave. Several scientists, including forensic odontologists, DNA extraction experts, forensic pathologists and forensic anthropologists, examined the remains. Dozens of Canadians had submitted their DNA for testing, thinking that they might be related. One by one, the experts used DNA and eliminated

all four suspects, Albert Nelson, Johnny Johnson, and Sigvill Peterson Haskyold. In fact, none of the DNA samples submitted were a match, nor was there a match found to Johnson's fingerprints or dental records. The DNA did yield several pieces of interesting information. It was determined that the man known as Albert Johnson was not Canadian. Oxygen isotopes developed from his teeth enamel indicated that he was either from the corn belt of the Midwestern United States or from Scandinavia. It was also determined that he had sophisticated dental work done. He had some fancy bridge work and a tooth-colored filling, which was quite rare for the times. This indicated that in his pre-fugitive life,

he was likely a wealthy man or came from a wealthy family. What was even more surprising was that this man, who had amazed everyone with his strength, endurance, and seemingly superhuman abilities, had scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine that caused one of his legs to be longer than the other. He likely dealt with chronic pain. In 2009, as the documentary called Arctic Manhunt was released, CBC Radio Nova Scotia heard from the Johnson family in Pictu, Nova Scotia, who said they had long believed that Albert Johnson was actually their relative, a man called Owen Albert Johnson. He apparently left Pictu at the beginning of the Depression to find work in the United States, and their last

letter from him was posted in early 1931 from Revelstoke, British Columbia. Sadly, they never heard from him again. And just months after he posted that letter, Albert Johnson showed up at Fort McPherson, some 3,000 kilometers north of Revelstoke. According to the radio interview, a relative was arranging for DNA tests, but there has been no public update. Given that 11 years have passed, that lead was likely ruled out. The search for the mad trapper of Rat River was, and still is, Canada's largest ever manhunt. But in 2019, Canadians were again transfixed by another manhunt that made international headlines. 19-year-old Cam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryash Murgalski quit their jobs and went on a road trip

up the Alaska Highway in British Columbia. Over the next six days, they murdered three people. First, couple Lucas Fowler and China Dease, and then Leonard Dick. The RCMP initiated a manhunt with up to 160 officers working constant shifts on the investigation, tracking the pair across 3,200 kilometers and four Canadian provinces before finding their bodies three weeks later in rural Manitoba. They had died by suicide, and their motive for the killing spree remains a mystery. After that, the Ashcroft Cache Creek Journal in British Columbia wrote a series on the Albert Johnson case, and author Barbara Rodin drew parallels between the 1932 manhunt and the search for McLeod and Shmigalski 87 years later. Quote, the remote locations of the

killings and the manhunts, the involvement of the RCMP, the use of the most modern technology and resources in both cases, the unknown motivations for the killings, the widespread media attention, the fear that residents of far-flung remote communities lived in while the manhunts took place, and the fascination the cases held for people around the world were all things that were similar in both cases. The article noted a difference in the public attitude towards the killers in the two situations. Quote, McLeod and Shmigalski were universally decried for their crimes, while Albert Johnson was regarded with sympathy by many at the time, who saw him not as a cold-blooded killer, but just as a defiant loner taking a stand against authorities.

Whatever he was, Albert Johnson left a man dead in his tracks, two others seriously injured, and didn't seem to care. Even in death, his real identity continues to evade the public, but the legend of the mad trapper of Rat River lives on. Thanks for listening and thanks to Kaelin Swain for researching this case. Today's podcast recommendation is True North True Crime, a new conversational style podcast that focuses on Canadian crimes, particularly unsolved and missing persons cases. Hey True Crime fans, we're the hosts of True North True Crime. With today's 24-hour news cycle, it's easy for a murder or a missing person case to fall

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