The Mad Trapper of Rat River

This is a story I first heard of several years ago, but lost the bookmark and had a hard time finding it again. Today I had another go at it and found the story again. What a relief! Anyway, stories like this are always fascinating to me. It all started because of this strange trapper who no one had ever seen or heard of before began trapping without a license in the Northwest Territory of Canada in 1931. But then, what really got the bullets flying is that he was apparently stealing from other trappers' traps, and when the Mounties went to talk to him about it, he just started shooting. His name was--as far as anyone has been able to determine--Albert Johnson, but he was better known as The Mad Trapper of Rat River:

Albert Johnson seemed to be no average trapper. The Mounties said of him to be capable of great feats and crafty beyond belief. The local Inuit said at one point in the chase that Johnson could snowshoe 2 miles for every 1 mile a dog team had to break trail.

Johnson had been back tracking in ever larger circles for the past month to evade capture. At this time hundreds of men were now tracking him. He had guns but could not use them to hunt for food--they would give away his position. He had means to light a fire to cook what food he could snare but the fire again would aid his pursuers. He also had to build shelters in snow drifts, surely his clothes must have started to get wet from perspiration and/or the elements.

When and where could he build a fire large enough to dry his clothes out or eat properly to help ward off the effects of 50 below zero weather? A tantalizing question.

Now Johnson's greatest feat was about to happen. Johnson could see that the Arctic Red River district was becoming to difficult to manage. His only escape was traverse the Richardson mountains and head into the high country of the northern Yukon. The Mounties had already closed the door on that idea by guarding the only 2 passes through this range. But the quick thinking Johnson pulled another fast one on the Mounties.

During a raging blizzard he climbed over these 7,000 ft mountains with very little food and no climbing gear. With visibility during the blizzard at near zero, trying to cling to sheer cliffs of slippery ice and numbing cold, the mountain men of the area told the Mounties it would be impossible to do at this time of the year even with the proper gear and food.

This excerpt is only a small part of the story. His ingenuity and tenaciousness were remarkable. Heck, I'd even say astounding. Not to mention his determination not to get caught and his seemingly superhuman endurance.

In the end, an airplane was brought in to help find him. There was a big gun battle, and he didn't go down until he had nine bullets in him.

There is a book available about this man: The Mad Trapper of Rat River: A True Story of Canada's Biggest Manhunt, which is in stock at Amazon. I haven't read it, but if it provides more detail than the various Internet summaries I have seen, it should be a fascinating read.