Hi, there. I'm with Hugh Fagan. And when I interviewed Hugh Fagan in two episodes earlier, one of the things, first of all, people really enjoyed the episodes. And one of the things, though, that I got from a lot of people that emailed me or were talking to me is they said, you know, in the one interview with Hugh, he talked a lot about, or he didn't talk a lot about it, but he mentioned the Mad Trapper of Rat River. Some people know the story still who live up in the Arctic, but a lot of people who listen to the podcast who are from the south, and even some people from the north, they don't know the story of the Mad Trapper of Rat River. So I thought we'd do an episode today, delving into that a little more and talking a little more about the Mad Trapper of Rat River. So glad to have Huw with us today. So maybe if you could just kind of start, Hugh, with the beginning of that story. And they referred to him as Albert Johnson, didn't they? Because nobody ever did figure out who he was.

That's right. He called himself Albert Johnson when he arrived at Fort McPherson.

Okay, okay. So that's the name he gave himself, or a fictitious name that he used. So maybe, Hugh, you could just start with the background. When did Albert Johnson first show up in the north, and where did he show up in the North?

As far as we know, the first he showed up was at Fort McPherson. He floated down the Peel river on a small raft, which was unusual. You know, most people had a canoe or something, some kind of a boat. But he came down on a small raft, and he landed the raft above Fort McPherson to start with for a night or two. And then he came down to Fort McPherson and went to the Hudson's Bay Company and purchased a number of supplies. He was difficult to talk to. He didn't like to talk to people. But some of the natives, when he did talk to them, he said his name was Albert Johnson.

So he kind of started off being a mystery right from the beginning, not wanting to talk to people very much.

That's right. Nobody knew who he was or where he came from. He went on. He paid cash for his purchases at the bay, which was a lot of money, apparently. He bought a lot, you know, to last all winter, you might say. And he went on down the Peel river, down the Husky Channel to the Rat river, where he found out how to get up the Rat river from some. One. Some people along the. That lived along the river. And nothing was heard from Them since. Until from then. Until Christmas time. Just before Christmas, natives came to the police in Arctic Red river and told them that somebody was interfering with their traps.

So he.

What.

What time of the year did he first show up?

July.

In July.

In July of 1931.

So when he went out into the bush, what did he do? Like, how did he survive out there?

Well, we don't know. He no doubt hunted. He had firearms of different descriptions. But it was suspected that he was trapping. So he was told that he would need a license if he trapped, which he did not obtain.

Did he live in a tent or.

No, he built himself a cabin. Okay. When they found. Eventually went to his cabin, they found out a lot of it was underground. Half was underground. Just a small door to in and out of. And it was a log cabin, but it was dug into the. And this was up the Rat River.

Okay. So he built it up the Rat River. So sorry, so you were saying that then people started to complain that he was doing stuff to their traps.

That's right. They felt that he was interfering with traps. And it was awful close to Christmas time. But in spite of that, the police in Arctic Red river decided they had to go and check out what was going on. So Constable Millen, who was in charge of Arctic Red river, sent Constable King and special Constable Bernard to look into this situation. They went to Fort McPherson on up the Rat river and found the cabin. And Constable King, they. They rapped on the door and told them who they were told. You know, they shouted out who they were, but no response. But they could tell there was somebody in the cabin because there was smoke coming out the chimney. So after spending some time trying to get a response from the person inside the cabin, they decided, well, we can't go in without a search warrant. So Constable King decided to go to a clavic and get a search warrant. A clavic was more accessible than going back to Arctic Red River. See, at that time, there was no police station at Fort McPherson, so they went to a clavic.

So there was a station in a clavicle.

Yeah.

Was there a state. Was there a station in Arctic Red?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

That's where Mellon and King were.

Right, right. Sorry. And just so people know, Arctic Red is now called Sigecik.

So the.

The traditional name is being used. So when you hear Arctic Red, it's Sigachik, if that's the name you're more familiar with.

Okay. So when they got to a clavic, they got a search warrant and they Got a couple more. Constable Special Constable Cita Chinley joined them there and they went back to the cabin and, you know, they walked up to the cabin and said who they were again. And King knocked on the door and said that we now have a search warrant. We're coming in. At that instant, the person inside fired shots and shot King. A bullet went into his chest.

So those shots came out through the cabin. He never opened the door.

He never opened the door.

He had to have. Did they ever figure out whether. Well, I guess be hard to tell. I wonder if he had kind of slots made.

They found later that he did. Oh, okay, okay.

So he prepared for something like that.

Anyway, as a result of King getting injured, Constable McDowell was one of the group that went out at that. There were several on that trip. He took King in the toboggan and the dog team, they were there by dog team, of course. And he made a record trip back to Atlavik with the wounded constable.

Record in what way?

He. I think 20 hours or something. Oh, wow. Okay. Anyway, when he got back there, There was a Dr. Urquhart in charge of the medical business in the clavic at the time. He took care of Constable King, who recovered eventually. Okay, okay. So now, as a result of this incident, Inspector Eames, who was in charge of the area of the time, decided that he needed a bigger posse to go there to see if they couldn't get whoever was inside, who is now by this time they're calling the mad Trapper.

Right. Appropriate name given what was happening Soul.

They didn't have sufficient number of policemen, so they recruited trappers and what have you, and signals personnel to go with them. They went out there, Newt Lang, who people know well up there, knew well up there because he later was on the territorial council. He was one. There were two signals men and Carl Garland was another person, a trapper that they went with them and Frank Carmichael, I think. Oh, okay, okay. They went out this time and with their dog teams, but when they got there, again, no response. But he was still there because the smoke was coming out the chimney. Okay, okay. So they tried to talk him out of the cabin again, but no, he started shooting at them. So they shot back and they thought they would had at one stage jarred the door open, but it didn't happen. So they were running short in food supplies for the dogs and themselves, so they realized they couldn't stay there much longer. So again, they went back to a clavic. And while they were back, they went back to a clavic this time and got more supplies. And they decided that maybe it'd be a good idea to have an airplane because they figured he escaped from the cabin. Okay. So when they did go back the next time with a group again of large number of people, he was gone. Okay. So this time they left tours. Some of the members stayed to follow. Try and follow his tracks because he'd gone from the cab, and the others went back to a clavic. And so in the. There were about four people, including constable Millennial, who was in charge, that followed tracks up the rat river to a place that's now called Millen Creek. Okay. And at that point, they found the trapper head of camp. And as soon as they found that, he started shooting at them. And at one stage, Milam stood up to go between trees, and the trapper shot him and killed him.

Oh, so he was killed when he was shot.

Yeah. Now, Carl Garland, who was with him at the time, crawled out to where the body was and tied the shoelaces together and pulled Millen's body back, also dragged him back. So in later times, when I marked that site, Garland went out there with me and showed me exactly where all this happened. Okay. Now, after. After this happened, of course, it was a pretty serious situation. So Inspector Eames had the plane. By this time, Wap May was the pilot. Okay.

Famous Wap.

Famous Wap stomping.

Tom Connors saw, I think, so he.

Was able to fly. Fly around and bring. The main thing he did was bring supplies. So now they didn't have to go back to Clavic to get supplies. They had supplies supplied by the airplane, and they set up a camp and what have you. Let's see, where do we go from there?

So maybe just one. And I'm positive you mentioned this at the start. So what year was this again?

1931. Okay. By now it was 1932 because it was over Christmas time.

Yeah, you meant. Yeah, Right.

By the time the chase was on, it was 32.

1932.

Okay.

So you have a whole group of people out there now, but now they don't have to be strapped to going back to a club.

And also by this time, they had another group of policemen coming from old Crow Yukon to help with the search because it was hard to follow him. He was wearing snowshoes backwards and going where the hard snow was so he couldn't track him. Right, right. But finally they. They did track him part of the way. And the airplane eventually saw where he was, and the posse was. Went to Meet him on the river and they feel that he thought he was somewhere where he wasn't.

He was lost a little bit.

That's right. Because he was trying to go to Yukon. They were pretty sure that he was going to go to the Yukon because they thought that he'd been from the Yukon. That's where he'd come from. Okay. Okay. So finally, as they went with their dog teams up the river, the airplane was able to let them know, yes, he's up here. So they met him on a curve in the river and he went to the bank and couldn't get up the bank for some reason. It was pretty steep. So he come out into the middle of the river and that's where the shootout occurred between the posse and him. Several people in the shootout, including one signals man, Hersey got shot. The trapper got him in the knee. Oh, wow. So there's another injured man now, but.

Right.

But then still only one fatally wounded.

Though, at this point.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There's only one fatality anyway. The. They. He finally, you know, they knew that they'd got him because the airplane could see things going on as well. So that's the end of it. They stopped, they took Hersey first to a Clavic and then they come back and got the body, etc. Okay.

And they never did figure out who he was, did they? He said he was Albert Johnson. They no leads ever proved that was his name.

No. There was a man by the name of Arthur Nelson that spent some time in Yukon just the years prior to this that they're pretty sure was the same person. I think both names were fictitious. Yes. Not sure. Maybe he was Arthur Nelson, but he was seen by a large number of people in Yukon who in later years, when they saw the photos of Albert Johnson after he was killed, they said, yeah, that's the same guy.

Same guy.

So it could have been.

So he likely didn't originate in the Yukon either, but he was there, at least at some point, it looks like. Made his way over into the Fort McPherson area, had his camp out there, and then led everybody on the chase.

And the indications were that he came from a northern state. Okay. In the United States, and that he was of Swedish descent. Oh, wow. Okay.

I never realized that. So now you mentioned Special Constable Sita Chinley. And so he was one of the critical people in tracking the mantra.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah.

And I think there's also been recently talked about that John Moses was one of the chief participants in the final shootout With Albert Johnson.

He was. Okay. He had come with a group from Old Crow. Okay.

So he was from Old Crow.

Constable me was in charge of that group of people. Okay. Okay.

That's interesting. History. Canadian history.

Now he.

If people want to learn more about the Chase and the Mad Trapper, there's books out there. What book would you recommend for people to read?

Well, I know that Dick north wrote a book on the Mad Trapper, and I know that it's authentic. You know, I've read that book. And he actually had access to the police files when he read that book. Right. And. Or when he should say, wrote the book.

Yeah. And Hugh is a little. What would you call. He doesn't brag about things, but he actually helped Dick. He provided all that information to Dick.

The file. The file.

The police file that gave him a lot of information for the book. Also, one thing I laugh about is there was a movie made with Charles Bronson. It's not really that funny when you think of it. The movie did make him look like a bit of a hero, in a sense, instead of the villain, which was totally opposite to what happened.

But in this light, maybe he was a hero. He was amazing. You know, his ability in the bush was amazing. And even the inspector of the RCMP in the clavic and things that I've read, what he said about him, they knew that he was fantastic. And nobody could have done, you know, not very many humans could have done what he did.

Right.

So he survived out there. He. Yeah.

Basically a villain in the sense that he was, you know, wrecking other people's traps. He was doing stuff that was bad. But his ability to survive and do things in the bush to throw people off the trail were amazing.

His skills, the story proves that he was amazing. Yeah. The distances that he traveled day after day with no dog team.

Right. With all those people after him.

Yeah. With the head dog team said all.

And it sounds like it wasn't for the people who are very good at tracking, like, you know, a special conspiracy. Chinley. And also the plane. They may not have caught him.

Very true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Boy. Interesting.

He was an excellent shot. They all tested to the fact that he was a brilliant shot and must have had some military training at my brother. Yeah.

Another interesting little piece of the puzzle that has never been solved. Some pieces there and some pieces missing which will never be found.

I'm sure he had quite a bit of luck with them in a way, too, because when they threw dynamite on his cabin, for example, and there was Newt laying Did that. He survived. Well, it knocked the roof down, but he still survived.

It makes a person wonder again, if he was preparing for that by digging. You said it was partly underground. If he hadn't done that, he likely wouldn't have survived the dynamite.

Yes. He must have had something against somebody, maybe the police or. He was scared of the police. Yeah, he knows.

Or running from something in the States. And that's why he was always cautious and a survivalist. Before there were survivalists. He was a survivalist in some ways.

Because of the fact that he never talked to anybody to tell them anything about himself. You know, he could have been anything. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's. Thank you so much for sharing that. That history of the story. Now, I find it really interesting as well. So when you were stationed up in Fort McPherson, you were a little worried that some of this history would be lost, and so you took some steps to make sure that that wouldn't be lost. Could you tell us about that?

Yeah. In 1960, it was when I was at Fort McPherson, concerned about the place where Millen was shot, for example, not nobody remembering where it was. So I was able to persuade the RCMP to finance a trip by airplane and what have you to build a cairn at the site where Constable Millen was killed. In order to pinpoint the site, I took Carl Garland with me and our airplane, the RCMP plane and pilot flew us out to the site and we snowshoed to the very spot where Car Garland pulled the body of Millen back. Oh, by the shoe.

Oh, yeah. He's the guy that pulled him by the shoe.

That's right. Right. And right there we. In fact, the day that we went out there, we took some materials out and later we built a cairn there. Okay. And we had it marked with a plaque. Now, I understand. I don't know what's been done since then, because I know that one of the people from Herbert Bleak, I think, from Fort McPherson was up there and saw the plaque and said it was in pretty poor shape in more recent years. So I don't know whether it's been replaced or not.

Well, hopefully it has. It's a story that has intrigued people for so many years. Hopefully that bit of history has been preserved now. So there was just the one cairn that was built.

No. Well, for the Mad Trapper. In relation to the Mad Trapper case, yes. But I had two other cairns built for the Lost Patrol, the Fitzgerald patrol on the Peel river, because, again, those places have never really been marked. And in order to pinpoint those sites. We flew Jimmy Husky up because he was the man who picked up the.

Bodies from the Lost Patrol.

A Corporal Summers had taken. He was a special at the time, Jimmy Husky. He took them with them up the Peel river, and they picked up the bodies and brought them back to Fort McPherson. Okay. So he was able to show me exactly where these. They died in two separate places.

Okay, so those cairns you built to commemorate those two spots as well.

That's right. Okay. Now, in recent years, I know that Neil Collin, for example, was. Was taking tourists up to see those sites. Okay. Okay.

So I wonder if. Yeah, I mean, that's something we'll have to follow up on. It's got me interested now. I'll have to follow up with folks up around Fort McPherson to see if the cairn that marks the Mad Trapper site has been maintained and if it's still alive and well, so to speak.

As most people know, the Mad Trapper was buried in a clavic.

Right.

Right by the administration building, the government building building. And there's a tree there that had AJ on it. That's the only marker that was there. And in about 1960, around there, I painted that AJ white so that it could show up good in the picture.

Yeah, I actually think we have a picture of that AJ Painted white that you painted white there so it would show up where the mantra.

In very recent years. Just a few years ago, they dug them up the grave.

Oh, really?

Oh, yes.

Were they looking for DNA to see if they could.

Dick north covered that in his book. Yeah, another book.

Okay. A new book about the Metrapper.

Tracking down the Metrapper. It is a different type.

Okay. Oh, that's interesting, too. All right, well, you know, we'll stop there. Thank you so much for sharing. You know that. That story about the Mad Trapper you mentioned, the Lost Patrol, we might have to do another episode at some point.

Because it's much fun further back.

Yeah, yeah. But still, it's another interesting story, and I know a lot of our listeners just love that history of the North. So we might have to do another interview and focus in on the Lost Patrol. So, Hugh, thank you very much for your time, and thank you for being on our podcast, Arctic Canada the Culture Cure.

Thank you.