Futility Closet - 277-The Mad Trapper of Rat River

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from a triply conscripted soldier to the hardest natural language. This is episode 277. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In the winter of 1931, a dramatic manhunt unfolded in northern Canada when a reclusive trapper shot a constable and fled across the frigid landscape. In the chase that followed, the mysterious fugitive amazed his pursuers with his almost superhuman abilities. In today's show,

Starting point is 00:00:43 we'll describe the hunt for the mad trapper of Rat River. We'll also visit a forgotten windbreak and puzzle over a father's age. And just a quick programming note, we'll be off next week, so we'll be back with a new episode on December 30th. In the summer of 1931, a blonde man with a powerful build floated down the Peel River on a handmade log raft and landed above Fort McPherson, a small settlement in the Northwest Territories. He bought a few items at a trading post where he revealed a slight Scandinavian accent. He knew what he wanted and seemed to have a lot of money. But he was evasive as to his origins and his identity was unclear. I'm going to call him Albert Johnson because that was the name he first became known by, but his real name is a mystery. He pitched his tent for three weeks, then bought a canoe, rode up the Rat River, and built an

Starting point is 00:01:40 eight-by-ten-foot cabin on its banks for the winter trapping season. Nothing more was heard of him until Christmas Day, when a local man complained to Constable Edgar Millen of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that Johnson had been tampering with his traps. The day after Christmas, Millen ordered two other constables to mush to Johnson's cabin and question him. The two reached the cabin at noon on December 28th. They saw him looking at them through the window, but he wouldn't answer the door, though they entreated him for an hour.

Starting point is 00:02:07 They realized they could do nothing further without a search warrant, and that meant going 80 miles down the Husky River to Aklavik and reporting the incident to Inspector Alexander Eames, commander of the Mounties Arctic Subdivision. They made the trip in two days, and Eames issued the warrant and sent them back with two additional constables. They arrived at the cabin on December 31st. Constable Alfred King left the other three by the riverbank and approached the cabin, noting that smoke was rising from the stovepipe. He called, Are you there, Mr. Johnson? There was no answer. King said that he had a warrant and that

Starting point is 00:02:38 he'd have to force the door if Johnson didn't open it. There was still no response, so King approached the door. When he knocked, a shot rang out. Johnson had fired through the door, hitting King in the chest and knocking him into the snow. He crawled back to the riverbank, where the others fired a series of shots to keep Johnson down while they pulled King over the bank. He was bleeding profusely, so the three unhit constables lashed him to a sled and started a desperate 80-mile run to save his life. The temperature was 40 below zero Fahrenheit, their dogs had already run for half a day, and a wind had sprung up, filling the trail with drifting snow and increasing the danger of frostbite. Though they

Starting point is 00:03:15 constantly had to lower and hoist the wounded man across the portages of the Husky River, they reached Aklavik in a record 20 hours. At its small hospital, doctors found that the slug had passed through King's chest but had missed his vital organs. He would eventually recover. No one could understand why Johnson had shot King. The Mounties' visit had been fairly routine. Eames organized nine men and 42 dogs to go after him, and a posse left Eklavik on January 4, 1932. In order to avoid ambushes, they circled inland as they approached the cabin, and due to some misjudgments, this cost them more time and supplies than they'd planned. But when they reached it, shortly before noon on January 9, Johnson was still there.

Starting point is 00:03:54 The Mounties arranged themselves along the riverbank, which extended in a half-circle around the cabin. Eames shouted to Johnson to come out and told him that King was still alive, meaning that he wouldn't be charged with murder. There was no response, but it quickly became clear that Johnson had no intention of surrendering. Every time the Mounties approached the cabin, he met them with such heavy gunfire that they were forced to retreat. He had a sawed-off shotgun and a.22 rifle with the stock sawed off, and he had punched loopholes in all four sides of the cabin. At one point, Knut Lang managed to slam the butt of his rifle against the four-foot door, forcing it open. He said that Johnson was shooting from a pit he'd

Starting point is 00:04:29 dug inside the cabin. The siege lengthened into hours and kept the men stationary along the riverbank in temperatures of 45 degrees below zero, and they were low on food. Eames knew he'd either have to fight his way into the cabin or retreat to get more supplies. But Johnson fought ferociously. The battle had started at noon and was still going at 9 p.m. Eames ordered flares lit, hoping to blind Johnson, and he also began throwing sticks of dynamite at the cabin, hoping to dislodge parts of the walls, door, or roof. That didn't work either, and now the temperature was dropping. In his heated cabin, Johnson could outweigh them. By midnight, the flares had gone out. Canute Lang managed to land a stick of dynamite on top of the cabin where it blew a

Starting point is 00:05:09 hole in the roof and knocked off the stovepipe. Lang burst again through the cabin door and found himself looking at Johnson, but for some reason failed to fire. Johnson recovered and started shooting again, and Lang retreated to the riverbank. It was almost 3 a.m. when Eames resolved on one last effort. He bound up the remaining dynamite, four pounds worth, and threw it 20 yards across the clearing. The blast tore the roof off the cabin and partially caved in its sides. Eames and Carl Garland charged across the clearing, hoping to overpower Johnson if he was dazed. Garland was carrying a flashlight, hoping to blind Johnson with it temporarily. Instead, when they reached the door, Johnson shot the flashlight out of Garland's hand, and the two men had to retreat to the riverbank

Starting point is 00:05:48 again. The man in the cabin was beginning to seem superhuman. Some of the posse suggested burning him out, but Eames wanted to take him alive. He decided to go back to Eklavik. So at 4 a.m., the Mounties left the scene. One man had outfought nine others for 15 hours. It's still not clear why Johnson fought over such a seemingly small dispute with another trapper. It's thought, and this is speculation as almost everything is, that perhaps he was wanted for a serious crime and suspected that when they'd gone to get the warrant that they had identified him. But in any case, in that case, he wouldn't have felt that it was safe to get captured under any circumstances because they'd identify him and then he'd face some grave punishment for whatever it was he'd done. That would explain at least some motivation for doing this.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Yeah. But no one knows. That's all just speculation as everything else is. On January 14th, 1932, Millen and Garland were sent back to keep an eye on Johnson. They found that he'd abandoned the cabin. On going through it, they found it hard to believe he'd survived the final dynamite blast, and there was no clue as to his identity. Longwave broadcasts were now beginning to publicize the story of Johnson's holdout. Somewhere, he acquired the epithet, the Mad Trapper of Rat River. That stuck, and the fact that he'd held out against a larger force

Starting point is 00:07:01 began to win him sympathy. This drama was unfolding during the Depression, and listeners rooted for the underdog. A heavy snow had begun during the night of the siege and continued all the next day, so there was no trace of Johnson's track. With no idea what direction he'd headed, his pursuers would have to search an area of 100 square miles, from the Richardson Mountains on the Yukon border to the Mackenzie River to the east, and they'd be searching in the brief daylight of the northern winter. Eames wrote in his official report, I note in press reports that Johnson is referred to as the demented trapper. On the contrary, he showed himself to be an extremely shrewd and resolute man, capable of quick thought and action, a tough and desperate character. The second posse left Aklavik on January 16, 1932,

Starting point is 00:07:43 bringing with them some homemade weapons and a fragile radio. They made it to the Rat River and set up a base camp nine miles east of Johnson's cabin, but found nothing, and by January 21, they were low on supplies and reduced their number to four men. It was hard to decide which direction to pursue next. The Rat River Valley was a tangle of spruce, poplar, willow, and cottonwood. It would be hard enough to find a man who got lost by accident, let alone one who was hiding deliberately. They decided to continue up the river. The going was slow. They were facing low temperatures, drifting snow, and short days, and Johnson had the whole wilderness to hide in and might turn and ambush them at any point.

Starting point is 00:08:18 Worse, on January 28th, the temperature dropped to 47 below zero. The pursuers were getting exhausted and their supplies were dwindling, but late that day, Quartermaster Sergeant R.F. Riddell found the faint traces of a two-day-old track. They set out the next day to follow this and managed to trail Johnson through several of his old camps. At length, they lost the track, but what they saw revealed incredible discipline and wiliness. Johnson never crossed a creek except on ice blown free of snow, and generally he kept to the ridges where his trail was minimized. Often he traveled in a zigzag pattern, presumably so he could spot pursuers. He built each of his fires under the cover of a snowbank to avoid being seen,

Starting point is 00:08:56 and he must be snaring squirrels and rabbits rather than shooting to avoid being heard. Though he was carrying a heavy pack, he was making twice their speed, and he had climbed cliffs, trotted through spruce forests, and crawled through dense willow. And the trails he left were so sophisticated and confusing that at one point two of his trackers met head-on. The pursuers were now far up the Rat River. They were discussing which way to turn when a man came mushing upriver to tell them he'd heard a shot fired in the vicinity of the Bear River, near where Millen and his men had first picked up the trail. Possibly Johnson had shot a caribou to replenish his supply of food, hoping that his pursuers had lost his track. Millen led his men there, and they picked up Johnson's trail again. They followed it down the river and up a creek,

Starting point is 00:09:37 finding fragments of caribou along the way. They lost it after climbing a ridge, but then looked down into a canyon and saw a wisp of smoke. They followed the ridge until they were almost above the camp. They could see a fire and the edge of a tarp, and they could hear Johnson puttering and whistling among the trees, but after two hours' wait in temperatures of 50 below, they never actually saw him. By that time, frost was collecting inside their clothing, so at dusk they headed back to their camp. The next day brought a raging blizzard. so at dusk they headed back to their camp. The next day brought a raging blizzard. Riddell and Garland descended into the canyon and managed to take up positions just 15 yards from Johnson

Starting point is 00:10:09 without being noticed. He was hemmed in against a steep cliff. The two others had started down the ridge toward the creek bed when one of them slipped. Johnson heard him, racked a shell into the breach of his rifle, and fired at Edgar Millen. Millen and Noel Verville dropped to the ground and fired back. Johnson dove across his campfire toward a hole left by a fallen spruce. As he did so, Carl Garland, a veteran of the Swedish army, fired at him, and Johnson collapsed in a heap behind an overturned tree. Millen called for Johnson to give himself up, but there was no response. Minutes went by, then an hour. There was no sound. He was, apart from being brilliantly good at keeping himself alive in the Arctic Circle in January, Johnson apparently had special

Starting point is 00:10:50 training and experience. He was extremely good with firearms, which has led some people to speculate that he had some experience in the police or the military. He was about the right age to have served in World War I, but there again, nobody knows. After two hours, darkness was approaching, and that might give Johnson. After two hours, darkness was approaching, and that might give Johnson a chance to escape, so Millen, against Verville's advice, decided to go in and route him out. Riddell and Millen had walked about five paces when a rifle shot rang through the canyon and a slug whistled over Riddell's head. Millen and Johnson exchanged shots, and Millen fell. He'd been shot through the heart. Riddell headed back to Eklavik to report

Starting point is 00:11:24 the news, and Garland and Verville built a stage cache to keep Millen's body safe from predators. Then they all retreated to a campsite that established a mile away. Sergeant Earl Hersey was waiting for them there. The next morning, he retrieved Millen's body, and they found that Johnson had escaped by climbing the vertical cliff, chopping handholds with his axe, and had dropped snow over his route afterward to cover his trail. At this point in his account of all this, journalist Dick North writes, the men seemed to be fighting a demon rather than a human being, and the demon had won again.

Starting point is 00:11:54 Eames requested that a plane be brought in to pursue Johnson in the North Country. The RCMP had never before resorted to this measure in tracking a man, but Eames saw the increasing supply trouble that a ground pursuit would face. Five teams of five dogs might consume 500 pounds of fish in 10 days. The request was approved. Millen had been killed on Saturday, January 30th, and by Wednesday, Western Canadian Airways had leased a Belanca monoplane to use in the hunt. It would be flown by Wilfred Wap May, who'd made his name as a flying ace in the war. On February 2nd, 1932, a new party set off to the Rat River. They found that after climbing the cliff, Johnson had disappeared into the creek beds and canyons in the watershed of the Rat and Barrier Rivers. The manhunt now extended over the

Starting point is 00:12:34 whole breadth of the Northland. With the increased publicity, the RCMP felt its reputation was on the line. If you've heard anything about the Mounties, you've heard that they always get their man. But the plane soon proved its value, where before it had taken three days to get supplies to the men, now it took 24 minutes. And now Wap May could search for Johnson's track from the air, which saved time. Johnson had been craftily setting up false trails as he ascended the barrier river, but May could spot those from the plane so the men could avoid them. In fact, if not for the plane, Johnson might have escaped entirely, because on February 9th, during a blizzard that stopped the pursuers and grounded the plane,

Starting point is 00:13:14 he bolted across the Richardson Mountains. This is practically impossible. The Richardsons are an extension of the Rockies, and at that latitude, they're barren crags and precipices where wind chill factors regularly reach 100 below zero. The locals had ruled out the possibility that Johnson would try to travel straight across the mountains in winter, especially now after he'd been chased for 30 days. The pursuers had been watching the passes and seen nothing, but on February 12th, a trapper named Pete Alexie reported snowshoe tracks east of La Pierre House in the Yukon. To this day, no one knows how Johnson accomplished this. Following up Alexie's report, May spotted Johnson's tracks from the air leading from the Bell River up one of its tributaries, the Eagle, but they soon disappeared among the

Starting point is 00:13:49 tracks of a herd of caribou. Evidently, he'd followed the herd to hide his movements. But the next day, May was able to pick up the trail again 20 miles further up the Eagle. On February 15th and 16th, fog grounded the plane, but a dog sled party made its way up the river, cutting spruce trees and making giant arrows in the snow to show May where they'd gone. On the 17th, the sky was clearing when the ground party broke camp. They didn't know it, but they had slept just across from Johnson on one of the river's hairpin turns. It appears that he'd assumed they were coming downriver rather than going up, and shortly before noon, the posse ran straight into him. In the lead were Sergeant Hersey and seven Huskies. Johnson

Starting point is 00:14:25 was backtracking, stepping into his old tracks and heading downriver. Startled, he put on his snowshoes and made for the bank of the river. Hersey grabbed his rifle and started to fire. Johnson ran a few steps and shot back, sending a bullet through Hersey's elbow, knee, and chest. As the other Mounties arrived, May signaled for the party to divide, and they moved up both sides of the river, flanking him. Johnson had run 40 yards and thrown himself into the snow, where he removed his pack and used it as a bulwark. With both halves of the pursuing party firing at Johnson, Eames joined May in the center and shouted twice to Johnson to surrender. Practically surrounded now, he had no hope of escape, but he made no response. One shot hit some ammunition in his

Starting point is 00:15:03 pocket, and the explosion took some flesh out of his thigh. He was hit also in the shoulder and the side, but he kept firing. Eames called a third time for him to surrender, but he only kept shooting. So they poured fire in on him. Seven bullets hit him before he was killed by a slug through the spinal column. In the plane above, Watt May and Jack Bowen were able to photograph the final firefight. It was so cold that they could hear the rifle shots from the plane. When Johnson was dead, May landed on the river and walked over to the body. As he stooped over it, he said, I got the worst shock I've ever had,

Starting point is 00:15:34 for Johnson's lips were curled back from his teeth in the most terrible sneer I've ever seen on a man's face. It was the most awful grimace of hate I'd ever seen. The hard-boiled, bitter hate of a man who knows he's trapped at last and has determined to take as many enemies as he can with him down the trail he knows he's going to hit. Hersey was flown to a clavik and survived. The doctor there also photographed Johnson's body and did a complete physical exam. He estimated that Johnson had been between 35 and 40 years old. His possessions included $2,410 in cash, including two American $5 bills, but there were no papers or identification on his body. Johnson had said not one word during the

Starting point is 00:16:12 entire drama, from the Mounties' first appearance at his cabin on December 28th to his death on the Eagle River 48 days and 300 kilometers later. The RCMP circulated the description and the photo, but no clue emerged as to Albert Johnson's roots. And officially, that's where it stands today. The man's identity has never been discovered. The Yukon journalist Dick North, who spent 40 years studying this case, came to believe in the 1980s that he was Johnny Johnson, a horse thief and bank robber who'd served prison terms in North Dakota and Montana

Starting point is 00:16:41 before disappearing in 1922. Johnny closely matched Albert in age, height, before disappearing in 1922. Johnny closely matched Albert in age, height, and hair and eye color. North got Johnny's fingerprints and asked to exhume Albert's body from its grave in a clavik, hoping that the permafrost might have preserved Albert's fingerprints so that a match could be found. He was denied permission, but in 2007, two Alberta filmmakers got it and they exhumed the trapper's body. DNA and isotope testing showed that Johnny Johnson was not a match, and neither were DNAed the trapper's body. DNA and isotope testing showed that Johnny Johnson was not a match, and neither were DNA samples provided by 12 families who, it was thought,

Starting point is 00:17:10 might have been related. Isotopes in the trapper's teeth showed that he'd grown up in the American Midwest or in Scandinavia, and intriguingly, he'd had expensive, sophisticated dental work done. David Sweet, a forensic odontologist at the University of British Columbia, said Johnson had, quote, tooth-colored and gold fillings and a gold bridge. He said access to this kind of bridge work would have been non-existent in the far north and available only to people with means. That's one of the only specific clues as to his identity even today. His DNA samples are stored permanently at the Bureau of Legal Dentistry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, so if any new evidence comes forward, it can be tested there.

Starting point is 00:17:49 But this story is now nearly 90 years old, and increasingly it looks as though this evasive man may get to keep his anonymity forever. This podcast is supported entirely by our wonderful listeners. We are always grateful to everyone who helps support the show. And this week, we're sending out a special Futility Closet thank you to Andrew Watson, our newest super patron. If you value this show and want to help support it so that we can keep on making it, please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. And thanks so much to all of our incredible supporters. We appreciate every donation and pledge that we get.

Starting point is 00:18:42 The main story in episode 271 was about scam artist Cassie Chadwick, who posed as an heiress in the early 20th century in order to live a life of extreme extravagance, and a few of our listeners let us know about a recent story that was rather similar. Irene Liberale wrote, I've just listened to your most recent episode and you might already know about this, but I would be remiss not to point out the similarities between the story of Cassie Chadwick and contemporary fraudster Anna Delvey. Russian-born Anna Sorokin moved to New York in the early 2010s, changed her name, and somehow managed to convince banks and wealthy people that she was a German heiress. I was fascinated by her story ever since I came across an article about her arrest in late 2017.

Starting point is 00:19:30 It seems that she faced more difficulties in securing credit than Ms. Chadwick did over 100 years ago, and that some financial institutions were suspicious from the start, but Anna still managed to live it up for several years before being eventually caught. What I found interesting about her case is that in her post-arrest interviews, Anna Delvey seemed genuinely confident that she would be able to pay back the money she owed. We don't have that kind of insight about Cassie Chadwick, so we can only speculate at what she was thinking. You'd said in the podcast that we don't know why Cassie did it since she must have known she'd be caught, but I think we should also consider the possibility that she believed she wouldn't, or maybe she had a compulsion so strong that the chance of being caught didn't factor into her thought process. Either way, it's an interesting

Starting point is 00:20:09 story and a fascinating reminder that across time, human nature remains the same. Thank you, as always, for a very interesting podcast. It's the highlight of my Monday, or Thursday, in this case. Anna Sorokina, usually known as Anna Sorokin, was born into a Russian working-class family that moved to Germany in 2007, when Sorokin was 16. After graduating high school in 2011, she moved several times, and in 2013, moved to New York City, where she presented herself as Anna Delvey, a wealthy German heiress. She stayed in luxury hotels, wore designer clothes, and freely handed out $100 tips. Sorokin maneuvered friends into paying for her lavish lifestyle,

Starting point is 00:20:50 claimed difficulties in getting her funds transferred from overseas, deposited bad checks and withdrew cash based on them, promised wire transfers that never materialized, or simply skipped out on her bills. She invited a friend on an all-expenses-paid trip to Morocco and then stuck her with the $62,000 tab, used fake bank statements to attempt to secure a $22 million loan, with which she was purportedly going to open a private arts club, and persuaded a bank employee to give her a $100,000 loan to cover her due diligence costs.

Starting point is 00:21:22 Sorokin was arrested in 2017, and in 2019, she was convicted of multiple counts of theft of services, larceny, and attempted larceny for defrauding hotels, restaurants, a private jet operator, her acquaintances, and banks. Sorokin was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of almost $200,000. According to The Guardian, at Sorokin's sentencing, the judge in the case said she was stunned by the depth of the defendant's deception, her labyrinthine lies that kept her con afloat. But in two interviews with the New York Times, Sorokin maintained that she

Starting point is 00:21:57 hadn't done anything wrong, as she had always intended to pay everyone back. She claimed that a lot of what happened had just been misunderstandings, and while she said that she did regret the way that she had done certain things, overall she said, I'm not sorry. I'd be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything. When asked if she would do the same things again if given the chance, the New York Times reported that Sorokin shrugged and laughing said, yes, probably so. Although imprisoned and facing deportation to Germany, Sorokin still has plenty of plans for her future. She plans to write books about both her exploits in New York and her experiences in jail and then prison, and told the New York Times, I guess I'm fortunate enough to go to real prison,

Starting point is 00:22:40 so I'll have more material. She claims that she is making investments in technology and cryptocurrency and hopes to start an investment fund, although her lawyer was quoted as saying, so I'll have more material. She claims that she is making investments in technology and cryptocurrency and hopes to start an investment fund, although her lawyer was quoted as saying, I don't know how realistic some of these business endeavors are. At least one book has been published so far about Sorokin's exploits, written by Rachel Williams, a former photo editor for Vanity Fair, who was manipulated into paying for the $62,000 Morocco trip. And projects about Sorkin are in the works for both Netflix and HBO. Williams had testified against Sorkin at the trial, and during her testimony, she had burst into tears and called the theft the worst experience

Starting point is 00:23:16 of her life. She was quoted in a CBS News article as having said of Sorkin's act, it was a magic trick. I'm embarrassed to say that I was one of the props and the audience too. It amazes me that some people can live so recklessly. That's all so floridly illegal. It just seems like you're just asking to go to prison. But then I think sometimes maybe people behave that way because they know someone else got away with it. That would make more sense. Otherwise, it seems like you'd be sort of crazy just to try that and hope that it works. Or you talk yourself into it. I mean, Sorkin somehow at least presents that she didn't think she was doing anything illegal because she was convinced she was going to pay all these people back eventually, somehow.

Starting point is 00:23:59 Maybe that, I don't know how, maybe that actually works sometimes. It's hard to see how. I don't know how. Maybe that actually works sometimes. It's hard to see how. In episode 265, Greg told us about an 18th century hedge that ran for more than a thousand miles across India. And then in episode 271, I discussed a wall of trees that the Indian government is considering to help restore degraded land. We received follow-ups on this topic from two of our listeners. Richard Clark wrote, I want to let you know I am part of a three-generation family that listens to and loves the futility closet. I listen, my children listen, and now my grandchildren listen. Thank you. You recently mentioned a story about India where the government is wanting to build offensive trees across the country to help restore the land.

Starting point is 00:24:44 A very similar plan was actually enacted here in the U.S. The Dust Bowl wreaked havoc across this country, and as part of the solution, offensive trees was proposed. The plan changed into many groups of forests that were planted, and those forests stretched from North Dakota to the Texas Panhandle. Again, thank you for the great work. And Brian Arnold wrote, I've enjoyed the discussion of the Trans-India Hedge and the follow-on stories. I'd like to add one of my own. A few years back, I've enjoyed the discussion of the Trans India Hedge and the follow-on stories. I'd like to add one of my own. A few years back, I read an excellent book on the American Dust Bowl called The Worst Hard Time. I was surprised to discover something in the middle of the story, where solutions being considered by the government were discussed. Among many of the solutions you

Starting point is 00:25:19 would expect to hear, FDR personally wanted to plant a huge line of trees, stretching from the Brazos River to the Canadian border, in the middle of the country, to serve as a giant windbreak and prevent further soil erosion. This has come to be called the Great Plains Shelter Belt, and was comprised of 220 million trees covering over 18,000 square miles. As you might guess, there is some disagreement about whether or not this helped the Dust Bowl in the short term, but it has had its long-term benefits. This sort of project has a word, sort of the opposite of Sharon's newly discovered desertification. It's afforestation.

Starting point is 00:25:54 There is discussion about how to restore the shelter belt going forward to enable it to continue to serve as a giant soil erosion-thwarting windbreak. Anyway, keep up the good work. The Dust Bowl was a name given to a section of the American Great Plains comprising parts of Colorado, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico that suffered severe dust storms throughout several years of drought in the 1930s. After years of over cultivation and poor land management, the drought and high winds created so-called black blizzards

Starting point is 00:26:25 of choking dust that sometimes traveled as far as the east coast. People and livestock were killed and crops failed throughout the entire region. And so, as Richard and Brian said, some 220 million trees were planted to create a series of walls starting in 1935. Initiated by President Franklin Roosevelt, the project was called the Great Plains Shelter Belt, although in the end it was actually composed of over 30,000 different shelter belts that created windbreaks to reduce wind speed and also improve water retention in the soil and generally stabilize the land and protect the topsoil. While this afforestation did provide many long-term benefits in the area, currently many many of the shelterbelts are in decline,

Starting point is 00:27:06 or in some cases are being actively cut down by farmers who want more land for crops. Journalist Carson Vaughn looked into this issue and spoke with a number of agroforestry officials in the Great Plains, and he reports a lot of concern about losing the shelterbelts. Vaughn says that on the issue, about half the foresters that he spoke with actually used the phrase, another dust bowl, while the other half avoided saying something that specific, but still said something like, we're going to see some pretty serious consequences.

Starting point is 00:27:34 So I hadn't even known about the shelter belts before hearing from Richard and Brian, but now I'm hoping that ways will be found to restore and maintain them. Yeah, I'd never heard anything about this. No, I knew nothing about it. You'd think something that big would be much better known. And Michael Cavanaugh wrote, after a very busy summer when my podcast attention wavered, I am spending an enjoyable fall catching up on back episodes. Today I heard episode 253 about tweets outracing earthquakes. I am not a Twitter guy, but I do have some direct experience of this.

Starting point is 00:28:04 In 2010, an earthquake struck east-central Canada with an epicenter near Ottawa. tweets outracing earthquakes. I am not a Twitter guy, but I do have some direct experience of this. In 2010, an earthquake struck east-central Canada with an epicenter near Ottawa. I was in my house near Toronto and was on a business call to some colleagues in Ottawa. I heard some commotion on the far end of the line as they hastily abandoned the shaking conference room and ran outside without telling me what was happening. The speakerphone stayed on at that end, and I found myself puzzling over what was going on, as I spoke tentatively into an unresponsive open phone line. Almost exactly a minute later, all of the dishes in my cupboards began rattling,

Starting point is 00:28:33 and I surmised the situation. As the distance is just over 350 kilometers, the 6-7 seconds per kilometer checks out. I was pleased to learn the speed of ripples in the restless earth in such an organic and memorable fashion. Keep up the great work, and I look forward to catching up to the current episodes. I want that to happen to me exactly once,

Starting point is 00:28:53 just so I can know what it's like. What, to hear somebody else having an earthquake on the phone? On the phone, and then feel it later. And then you can time it and see how fast it traveled. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We really appreciate hearing from our listeners. If you have any follow-ups, feedback, questions, or comments, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:29:22 It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me an interesting situation, and I have to work out what is actually going on, asking yes or no questions. This is from listener Dan Bigler. In 2007, 47-year-old Jay Richardson saw his father in person for the first time. At this time, his father was only 28 years old. How is this possible? Okay. Are these all this possible? Okay.

Starting point is 00:29:47 Are these all human beings? Yes. Is there space travel and relativity involved? No. He saw his father for the first time, and his father was 28 years old. Do you say anything about how old the son is? Jason, I think his name was? Yeah, he's 47.

Starting point is 00:30:05 He's 47. His father is 28 years old. 28 years old. Okay, is there some kind of funny age system involved? No. And when you say 28 years old, would you say that his father has only been alive for 28 earth years? Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:28 Really? Yes. And when you say father, do you mean someone who donated genetic material to create this person? Yes. So you're asking how can a son be older than his father? Oh, oh, he saw his father for the first time not in person though or did you say in person i didn't say that because it's like oh yes i did actually oh you did never mind i had this he saw a photograph of his father for the first time and his father died when he was 28 or is that it the father died when he was 28, or is that it? The father died when he was 28, and he's somehow seeing his father's remains or a likeness of him or something like that.

Starting point is 00:31:09 His father's not still alive. Yes, actually, that's it. Jay Richardson's father, J.P. Richardson, was better known as rock and roll star The Big Bopper, most famous for the 1958 single Chantilly Lace. The Bopper died at age 28 in the 1959 plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly and Richie Valens, the event known as the Day the Music Died. His son, Jay Richardson, was born almost three months after the bopper's death. In 2007, Jay Richardson requested that his father be exhumed to resolve some unanswered questions about his fate, and during the exhumation observed his father's reportedly well-preserved and still recognizable remains.

Starting point is 00:31:42 He was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, reportedly well-preserved and still recognizable remains. He was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, I saw my father. I was finally able to get peace for myself, and hopefully in the process, my father will be able to rest more peacefully. Oh, wow.

Starting point is 00:31:53 Thanks, Dan. Wow. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Just a reminder that we'll be off next week. In the meantime, if you're looking for more Futility Closet, you can check out the website at futilitycloset.com,

Starting point is 00:32:14 where you can graze through Greg's collection of over 10,000 quirky curiosities, browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast, with links and references for the topics we've covered. At the website, you can also find a support us section with a donate button and a link to our Patreon page, which you can also find at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. We would really appreciate your support. And if you become a patron, you can spend next week catching up on all our bonus content, like outtakes, more discussions on some of the stories, and peeks behind the scenes of the show. If you have any comments or feedback for us, please email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:32:55 Our music was written and performed by the amazing Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks.

Futility Closet - 277-The Mad Trapper of Rat River

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